The Inkblot
by DictionaryWrites
Summary: Lucius Malfoy, Head Boy, is entering his final year, but with the war awaiting him after his NEWTs, he wants for a hobby to distract him. Taking a snotty, unwashed, foul-mouthed First Year under his wing is perhaps unorthodox, but... Well. Isn't it only the responsibility of a young scion to commit himself to the education of his inferiors? Gen. Lucius & Severus POV.
1. A Personal Project

**A/N: Warnings for child abuse and neglect (both in flashbacks and in reference) as well as domestic violence; very unhealthy children (not just in regards to Severus Snape's home life, but also in that of Lucius' and others); mentions of the war throughout, possibly including discussions of and depictions of violence later on.**

 **This fic is centred primarily on class differences and complicated relationships with varied power dynamics, and will cover Lucius' final year/Severus' first year from start to finish.**

 **Just a note that if small departures from canon or original worldbuilding upset you, this probably isn't the fic for you, and I'll normally ignore canon nitpicking on PM. Cheers, hope you enjoy!**

Settled neatly on a bench facing the centre of the hall, that he needn't crane his neck quite so much to watch the proceedings, Lucius sits with his back straight, his posture the very image of that which a proper Pureblood boy ought exude. Rattling against the castle roof, the rain is a constant mutter against the talk and laughter in the Great Hall, as they each await the new crop of students to make their appearance. Lucius had seen McGonagall flit out into the hall just a few moments before the rain had started, and he only hopes they'd made it into the safety of the building before the heavens had opened – the children always look so unkempt when they're forced to make their inaugural journey into Hogwarts under the pouring rain, and that is without acknowledging the inevitable one or two that tumble into the lake water and are neatly nudged back into their boats by the great squid within.

On Lucius' chest, shining a proud silver, rests his _Head Boy_ badge.

Before him lies his final year at Hogwarts and the culmination of his N.E.W.T.s, and then to the wider world, to the war that threatens the horizon. Allowing himself a moment to ruminate on this, Lucius reaches for his glass, taking a small sip of his wine: when he leaves the castle's walls, he will have to take his father's place at the Dark Lord's side, kneel at his feet and swear his fealty. He hears the whisper, at times, of Father's robes in the corridor as he leaves for some meeting or other, hears the door click shut, and he recalls—

He recalls being a very young boy, scarce more than a toddler. That was when he had first met the Dark Lord, had witnessed his pale visage with its subtle wrongness, and the image of him is hazy in Lucius' own childhood memory. What might it be like, to meet the man again, now that he is a legend?

Lucius takes another sip of his wine, longer this time.

"Are you alright?" asks a voice across the table, and Lucius' gaze flickers to Orabelle Bulstrode, a heavyset girl with cascades of beautiful, chestnut hair. Her dark eyes rest eagerly on Lucius' face, and as ever, she seems desperately eager to gain his attention. Lucius gives a graceful inclination of his head.

"Quite well, thank you, Orabelle," he murmurs. "Merely an upset stomach, I think. A light meal is in order for me tonight, I think."

"Oh, me too," Orabelle says immediately, and Lucius feels a scepticism make itself known, but he does not allow it to show on his face, instead giving her a pleasant smile. The great double doors of the hall open, and immediately, a hush falls over the room as everybody leans forward, surveying the First Years as they file in, clinging together in a tight formation, as if frightened to show their herd has gaps… And then they rest in the middle of the room, and Lucius watches in amusement as they shift apart, already settling into formed gaggles and pairs – he sees a group of three young girls each with their hair in slightly messy braids, who had likely sat together on the train and worked on each other's hair as they journeyed toward the castle; he sees a pair of boys together, one of whom vaguely recognisable as one of the Blacks by his aristocratic features and his dark hair. Bringing up the rear of the group is a pair of children, a boy and a girl, and Lucius frowns slightly as he studies them, curious. The girl, her hair a beautiful burnished red that hangs long about her shoulders, but is too fine to be that of Weasley blood, is looking at the Great Hall with the wonder most First Years do, her eyes wide and catching the light. The boy beside her, on the other hand, is staring resolutely at the ground, his hair a lank curtain about his face, and for a moment, Lucius thinks that perhaps he was one of the unlucky few to fall into the lake, but his robes are quite dry. His hair's shine, Lucius realises with a distinct distaste, is entirely as a result of the grease in it.

When the boy turns his head, risking a glance toward the Ravenclaw and Slytherin tables, Lucius catches a glimpse of a hooked nose and a prominent, dark brow contrasting against extraordinarily pale skin. The boy looks as if he's been in the dark for the past ten years, awaiting his Hogwarts letter, and he has a quality about him that reminds Lucius of Mr Goyle's crup, quick on his feet and with flinching movements, as if expecting a blow to find him at any moment.

Curious.

Dumbledore has been making his speech as Lucius mulls over these new additions to the Hogwarts school body, and as the Sorting Hat sings its song, Lucius thinks again over the children, searching for familiar faces. He returns his attention only when McGonagall takes up her list of names in her hand, beginning to read off the names of the new children.

"Abbot, Alastair," McGonagall calls. This year, Lucius thinks, he should like something to distract him from the stresses of his studies, and the increasingly expectant pressure of his father's gaze – some sort of personal project. Father keeps insisting he find a wife, and then retroactively deciding Lucius need not look, because he will arrange a match instead, and thus that activity is removed from the running – there is hardly any point in searching for a wife if his father will overrule his own arrangements before he can complete them.

"RAVENCLAW!" declares the Sorting Hat. The names ring on as Lucius muses on his thoughts, vaguely noting Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff… And then walks Black, Sirius toward the Hat, and Lucius feels his lips quirk into a smile: the first Slytherin of the year.

Black walks with the royal demeanour of any of his ancestors, his chin raised high, his shoulders back, a little grin on his face. The boy, Lucius would wager, will grow into a handsome young man – there's something in the roguish shift of his lips, in the sparkle of his eyes, the natural mischief of a dandy waiting in the wings. Most of his cousins, after all, are quite charming – Bellatrix's shrill voice and obscene temper aside, Andromeda has a cool beauty (what is she doing, now, Lucius wonders? He hasn't seen her about this summer past), and the youngest one… It's a floral name, he thinks – Narcissa, that's it. She's a quiet thing, preferring her books and her studies to the engagements of her fellow Fifth Years, but he's never heard a bad word about her, nor had to give her a stern word for a misdemeanour.

As Black sits down on the stool, a momentary shadow passes over his face, as if his confidence wavers before the eager crowd, and then the Sorting Hat drops over his head, smoothing down his thick hair. Lucius shifts his hands, his fingers brushing the opposite palm as he poises them, ready to clap—

"GRYFFINDOR!" the Hat declares, and Lucius stares. A silence rings in the Great Hall as every student with a brain in their head digests this oddity of oddities – that a Black, a _Black_ , should be pronounced a Gryffindor. Turning his head, Lucius glances to Bellatrix, whose mouth is wide open, her eyes horrified; to Narcissa, whose hand is over her mouth.

Black, Sirius shifts the Sorting Hat from his head, gives the wide-eyed McGonagall a beam of fiendishly white teeth, and saunters in the direction of the Gryffindor table. After but a second's pause, they burst into cheers and applause for their new member, and Lucius feels his lips twist into a slight frown.

This school is going to the _dogs_.

He watches the others as they are sorted – the red-headed lass, who seems very nervous as she steps up to the stage, is named _Evans_ , a name that Lucius certainly doesn't know – likely, he would suspect, a Half-blood, or… A distasteful thought, but perhaps she's a Mudblood. He glances at Lupin, Remus with thought – the boy has one or two little scars on his face, which would point to his being a Mudblood too, given that most wizarding families would heal such things, especially on the face, but Lucius does think he's heard of the Lupins, and then again, the wounds could be magical in nature…

Pettigrew, Peter miserably drips out of the crowd, and with a weary sigh, McGonagall casts a drying charm on his sopping robes. There is _always_ one that falls in the lake. Pettigrew, at least, is a wizarding name, although it is no loss at all when the boy – shivering violently in a way that Lucius presumes is now anxiety rather than the cold – goes to Gryffindor. Then Potter, James, another Gryffindor – hardly a surprise.

"Snape, Severus," McGonagall calls, and Lucius studies the boy's movement as he jerkily rushes up to the stool. He slips in the puddle that Pettigrew had left, and he hisses in pain as he lands hard on his knees on the stair; there is scattered laughter about the room, and Lucius hears a loud whoop from the First Years at the Gryffindor table. _Snape_. Not a name that Lucius recognizes, and the ugly little thing is undernourished, his robes not fitting him properly, so perhaps he _is_ a Mudblood, and what a shame. There's a curiosity stirring in Lucius, a vague desire to know what exactly makes _this_ one tick.

McGonagall lifts the boy up by a skinny arm, and visibly humiliated, a mottled flush showing on his bony cheeks, he sees him all but snatch up the Hat, jamming it down onto his head. There's a long pause, this time – perhaps two or three minutes pass by, which means some argument is going on between the boy and the Hat, some discussion—

Finally, the Hat rings out – with an air of subtle satisfaction – "SLYTHERIN!"

Lucius feels his lip twitch in satisfaction as he claps, watching the boy come up toward the table, and Lucius can see the tear in the skirt of his robe, the slight bloodiness on one knee. The boy barely seems to notice, he is so desperate to sit himself down and escape the stares of the other tables and, equally it seems, the cheers of his compatriots.

Hm.

He watches the boy throughout dinner. Lucius does not lack for subtlety in his attentions, and he is careful only to glance in the boy's direction and not to stare, or to spy him through the reflection in a silver tureen rather than peering at him directly, but there are curious aspects to him that Lucius feels a need to examine.

The boy cannot be a Mudblood: here, the Sorting Hat has assured them of that.

And yet there is a desperate yearning to the way he looks about the table when their repast appears, to the way that he looks up at the candles hovering high above their heads, as if he has never seen such magic before, as if it is all new to him. His clothes fit him ill, and Lucius sees the sign of a poor family, of ill-fitting robes, but unlike the Weasleys, whose hand-me-downs fit them ill and are threadbare and worn, the boy's robes are quite new… And yet the skirt drags on the floor, its hem clumsily drawn up that it might be let down in future, and he all but swims in the fabric.

 _Poor_.

This theory is only confirmed when Lucius sees the boy eat – he eats in the desperate fashion of a child who has not eaten all day, and yet is ever cognizant of appearing inoffensive to those that might be about him. Lucius can see the ghost of table manners clinging to his bony, grasping fingers: at no point does Snape, Severus rest his elbows upon the table, and yet he holds his fork and knife in transposed hands; he does not chew with his mouth open, but the mouthfuls he takes are too laden with gusto, and leave his cheeks full and his chin messy; he sits still with his back straight, yet his shoulders are hunched up toward his neck, and his head is bowed to face his plate instead of anybody else at the table. Attempts to speak with the boy, either by his fellow First Years or one of the new prefects this year – young Adrian Fordham, a polite and well-mannered young man that looks as if a stiff wind might kill him – are met with silence and an uncertain stare, followed by monosyllabic answers that brook no encouragement as to future interaction.

If anything, the child seems _uncomfortable_ with people speaking with him – it goes beyond, from what Lucius can make of his flinches and his uncertain shudders, mere shyness or social uncertainty.

He expects a blow.

This unsettles Lucius, when the thought finally clicks in his head, when he finally realizes exactly what this might mean. The way that he shifts back from gesturing hands, so plainly does it paint a picture on the air, of a blow against his cheeks or his neck, and Lucius sets his jaw, just slightly. Even Lucius' own father would never be so angry, so taken away with his own temper, as to come to _blows_ —

 _That_ , Lucius knows quite implicitly, is the failing of a Muggle.

Lucius is in need of a hobby. Hadn't he just been ruminating on that fact?

And teasing out a few more details about this young man, perhaps improving his bearing somewhat – that idea rather appeals. And this child, all black fabric and lank hair and sallow skin, why, he's like an inkblot amidst the neatly printed letters of his fellow students, in need of refinement, in need of careful cultivation. Such is the work of a proper young gentleman, too, to assist his inferiors in the art of self-improvement… An inspired idea. Truly.

 **ϟ** **~ THE INKBLOT ~** **ϟ**

Severus keeps hesitating in the corridors as they move down toward the dungeons, distracted and uncertain. He had had to argue with the Sorting Hat, when he'd sat upon the stool, and he somehow feels as if there is a threat that it will call him back, tear him out of Slytherin house and put him into Gryffindor instead, but it can't do that, can it? It can't pull him back, now that he's in Slytherin, it can't, it can't—

 _You could be wonderful in Gryffindor, you know, it's all right here in your head—_

 ** _No._**

His stomach hurts. He hadn't eaten too much, hadn't wanted to make himself sick, but the food is richer than what he's used to, and he hadn't known what half of it bloody was. All soups and fat meats and that, and no just— _Sandwiches_. What's wrong with sandwiches? You know what it is: meat and butter between two slices of bread. How hard is that? And the embarrassment of it, arguing with the Hat while everyone stared at him, and the way he'd tripped and fallen on the stairs…

God, that'd hurt. There's a steady ache on one side of his chest where his dad had shoved the kitchen table across the room at him, pinning him back against the wall, and it's still sore now. _Bad_ sore, actually. He hopes it evens out soon.

Swallowing, he realizes he has come to a stop, and rushes after the sound of the other First Years filing down toward the Common Room, but he must take a wrong turn, because he gets stuck in the shadows, _shite_ , and he'll be alone, he'll be stuck, and someone'll come to find him—

"This way," says a quiet voice, warm and with a delicately clipped accent – posh. Everyone at this school sounds so bloody posh, and they all pronounce everything _just so_ , and probably drink their tea with their pinkies out. Severus turns, and he looks at the other boy, who is a lot older than Severus – he looks like he's maybe seventeen or eighteen, and he has his hair right long, right down past his shoulders, like a girl. His face isn't like a girl's, though, not with the hard line of his jaw and his chin: he's handsome, in a pretty boy sort of way, like the kind of man that'd be on one of them dirty romance novels he sees in the library. He holds his wand up to light the darkened corridor, gesturing for Severus to come toward him with a big, clean hand, and Severus rushes to follow him, but trips on his torn robe, bastard thing.

Before he hits the floor, the older boy catches him under one arm, and Severus hisses in pain as he catches the bruising and the soreness on the side of his ribs, from the table. It's turning black, the bruising, but that's good, that it's getting lighter – that means it's getting better, even if the pain is still the same at the moment.

"Ah ah, alright, on your feet," the older boy says delicately, and Severus stumbles back from him, trying to stand straight as his fingers go to his side, touching the bruise. The boy looks down at him critically, his expression full of thought, and Severus doesn't like that look, doesn't like how it feels when it lands on his face. He looks down at the boy's chest instead of at his piercing eyes, and he sees the sheen of the badge on his chest. It says **HEAD BOY**. "Come," Head Boy says, and he leads the way. "You are Snape, Severus, are you not?"

"Yessir," Severus says. Head Boy turns back to glance at him quizzically, and Severus stiffens for a second, wondering if this lad is gonna hit him – posh lads don't know how to fight, Severus knows, but this guy's nearly six-two and _built_ , and if he clocked Severus one, he knows he'd feel it.

"My name is Lucius Malfoy," Head Boy says, leading Severus back into a more well-lit corridor, and Severus has to rush a little to keep up with his long-legged gait, which is very smooth and fast.

"Lucius," Severus repeats. "Like the saint?"

"Which saint?" Severus hesitates. There's something in the other boy's tone that's kinda expectant, and he doesn't know if it's right to actually answer, or if he's meant to stay quiet, if it's a trap. There's all new rules, here at Hogwarts – Mum'd said there'd be new rules, that it'd be different.

"Of Britain, I s'pose. There's Lucius of Cyrene, too, and there's popes that were called Lucius. Comes from _lux_ – it means bright or shine, in Latin." Severus likes Latin. His mother had always had some Latin books on her shelves, had dictionaries and old textbooks from when she was at school, and he's been reading them and rereading them since he was old enough to read. He likes… He likes dictionaries. Boring, yes, but he likes how clear laid out they are, how there's just right or wrong answers, how everything's in order. It's… It's calming.

"Not like that," Lucius says cleanly. "The C makes a sibilant sound – compare it to _serene_. Not Kai-reen."

"Oh," Severus says. Humiliation burns in his cheeks.

"Do you know many saints?"

"Dunno. I s'pose."

"Was it a saint you were named for?"

"Why're you asking me so many questions?" Severus snaps, and Lucius turns to glance at him, one of his silvery eyebrows raised: automatically, Severus takes a flinching step back, expecting the sudden swipe of his hand, or even a punch.

"I was not named for a saint, Severus," Lucius says mildly, and he turns back toward the corridor. "Lucius is a family name – the original Lucius Malfoy was perhaps named for some consulate or emperor or other, I expect."

"Oh," Severus says. He isn't sure what else to say.

"What is Severus the saint of?" Lucius asks. At the end of the corridor, Severus can see a patch of wall that is neatly lit by two torch brackets on either side – that's the entrance to the Slytherin Common Room. Must be. His mum always said it was just like that.

"Not all saints is _of_ something," Severus says.

" _Are_ of something," Lucius corrects, and Severus frowns slightly, furrowing his brow.

"Are of something," he repeats dutifully. His stomach feels too full and his cheeks are burning and his robes are ripped and he's still so bloody embarrassed from before— "S'not like… You know, like Roman gods, or something."

"Your mother is a Catholic?"

"No, my da." There's a moment's pause, and then Severus asks, deciding to leap into uncertainty, "Are you a Catholic?"

"No," Lucius says.

"Baptist?"

"No."

"You an Anglican, then?"

"No." Severus furrows his brow, twisting his mouth.

"What, are you a Jew?" Lucius laughs softly, and when he chuckles, he put one of his big hands over his mouth, like it's not polite for anyone to see him smiling. When he looks at Severus, Severus feels stupid, as if he's laughing at him. "Don't laugh at me," Severus says. "You don't look like a Jew."

"And what do Jewish men look like, in your mind?" Lucius asks, his lips quirked up into a smile. Severus hesitates for a second, trying to work out the answer to this – he isn't actually sure.

"I dunno," Severus mutters, crossing his arms over his chest. "What are you then? Other than a ponce."

"Oh, I should think ponce will do for now," Lucius says casually, and he turns toward the wall. " _Spero lucem_." Severus watches, spellbound, as the bricks begin to slide apart, shifting just like the ones at the entrance to Diagon Alley had, and revealing a corridor that is hung with silver and green curtains, and is noticeably warm compared to the dank chill of the dungeons. "Would you translate that for me, Severus?"

" _Spero_ _lucem_?" Lucius inclines his head, his hair shifting on his shoulders and catching the light. It's the sort of hair a doll would have, Severus thinks. It doesn't look right on a man. "I hope for light." Lucius smiles a close-lipped smile.

"Very good," he says approvingly, and he leads the way into the Common Room.

"Lucius!" says a black boy lounging on a couch: all around him, neatly sat on stools and chairs, are the other First Years. "Where were you?" He's got a thick accent on him, like he's French, maybe.

"Severus got lost in one of the corridors," Lucius says, and Severus looks down at his feet. "Because you, Prefect Crowley, weren't performing your duty in bringing up the rear." He turns his gaze on a very pale girl with strawberry blond hair, and she crosses her arms over her chest.

"How am I meant to see him in the dark?" she asks, gesturing to Severus. "He's all in black."

"They're all _all in black_ ," points out the black boy.

"Well!" Crowley says. Lucius hand comes toward Severus' shoulder, but doesn't quite touch it: instead, it hovers just over his lower back.

"Sit down with the others, Severus," Lucius says quietly, and Severus sits down on a cushioned stool, his knees pressed together, his elbows in his lap. There's a speech, after that, from the black boy, whose name is Armand Richelieu. He's a Fourth Year, and he _is_ French. He gives some speech about Slytherins and values, all about looking after each other, sticking together… About Slytherins being each other's family, at Hogwarts.

It's a nice thought.

Severus wishes it weren't probably bollocks.

The Slytherin dormitories are small cells down corridors, with two people to each room – according to Richelieu, they have to have small rooms and a lot of supporting walls and columns down in the Slytherin quarters, just because of the lake on top. The Slytherin dormitories span out underneath the lake, and when Severus looks up at the ceiling, he can see it's been enchanted just like the ceiling in the Great Hall, so you can see the water outside, and fish swimming by…

Severus is rooming with a boy called Thadeus Avery, who looks at Severus like he's nothing more than dirt on his shoe.

Like Severus thought before.

Bollocks.

 **ϟ** **~ THE INKBLOT ~** **ϟ**

Lucius keeps a close eye on Severus in the first week at Hogwarts.

He's a studious young boy – whenever Lucius sees him, seated at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall or settled in the library, he is leaning over a book or over an essay, working very carefully and with a great amount of care beside the red-headed Gryffindor, Evans. His handwriting is neat and spidery, although Lucius notes it's a rather feminine hand. But he is… _Filthy_. It is plain to Lucius that the boy does not bathe in the mornings, nor in the evenings, and Lucius is absolutely going to lay some _ground rules_ in that regard, but the study habits are a good foundation, at least.

And there is one _other_ thing. Severus distinctly favours his left-hand side, the right side tender and sensitive, as it had been when Lucius had caught him when he had arrived, and it's… Uncertain. Lucius has a suspicion as to what exactly the injury in question is, and, well, it can hardly be allowed to fester.

"With me, please, Severus," Lucius says on Friday afternoon, and Severus looks up from the chair in the Slytherin Common Room, where he is curled in a very tight ball. It reminds Lucius of a cat, the way in which he holds himself, his legs tightly folded beneath his body, huddled in the armchair and in the overlarge fabric of his robes.

"What?" Severus asks, staring up at him.

"I wanted a word with you, Severus," Lucius says quietly, so that none of the other students can hear him: behind him, Severus' fellow First Years are playing Exploding Snap, but from what Lucius can gather, Severus' isolation is entirely self-imposed. "Would you take a walk with me?"

"Alright," Severus mutters, and Lucius watches as he fastidiously marks his place in his book, setting his bookmark exactly two thirds of the way down the page before he closes it. Rushing off, he disappears into the corridor for a moment, and then hurries back to follow Lucius from the room.

"Friendly with that Evans girl, are you?" Lucius asks as they step out into the corridor, and he takes note of Severus' response, at the way he keeps his gaze on the stone floor as they move out into the dungeons.

"I s'pose," Severus says.

"I'm growing rather tired of hearing you say that," Lucius murmurs. "If you cannot be bothered with each syllable of the word, Severus, perhaps you might choose another." Severus stiffens slightly, and Lucius hears him swallow.

"Yessir," he mutters, his tone full of venom.

"You needn't call me sir. My name is more than appropriate." Severus glances at him, furrowing his dark brows, and Lucius can see the way his lank hair hangs in greasy strands, and he can see a little ingrained dirt darkening the skin on his neck to a sallow brown instead of a pasty yellow-white. "Have you a shower at home, or a bath?"

"A bath," Severus says, after a short pause.

"And how often do you use it?"

"Why?"

"Because I am your prefect, and I am asking you a question," Lucius says evenly.

"Dunno," Severus says.

" _Dunno_ ," Lucius repeats. "Repeat that for me with the eloquence befitting a young man. _I don't know, Lucius_."

"What's it bloody matter?"

"Severus," Lucius says, in as smooth and foreboding a voice as he can muster, and he sees Severus flinch slightly.

"I don't know, Lucius," he says, and although it doesn't sound quite right in his accent, which is torn between a cut, Northern sneer and the musical lilt Lucius expects of the Irish. It's a strange, mismatched thing, much like Severus' worn boots in contrast with his robes and his dirty finger nails. It's close enough, for now. "I had a bath when Mum said I could."

"You are eleven years old, Severus," Lucius murmurs, leading the way up a stairwell. "Are you telling me you don't know how to run a bath?"

"I can't reach the tub," Severus mutters. "Even if I stand on a chair. S'on top of the wardrobe, and besides, it's in Mum and Dad's room, and I'm not meant to go in there." Lucius frowns slightly, taking this in. The tub is _on top_ of a wardrobe, meaning it's disconnected the pipes.

"Copper, is it?"

"Tin." _Very_ poor, then. What sort of home must it be, that the bath is not connected to running water – these Muggles, truly _full_ of savagery…

"Well, you can reach the tub now," Lucius says mildly. "There are cells with showers in the bathrooms, and there are cells with bathtubs as well. Which do you think you would prefer?"

"Du—" Severus stops himself, and then says, "I don't know, Lucius." Lucius feels himself smile just slightly, and he looks warmly at the boy, but Severus is looking down at the Hall of Staircases, and not at Lucius himself.

"Well, from now on, Severus, I want you to bathe at least twice a week. Try both the bath and the showers, and see which you prefer." As Lucius steps out from the landing into the corridor, Severus lingers back, and Lucius glances back at him. Severus' cheeks are flushed pink, and he looks a little green about his gills, his ridiculous nose wrinkled.

"You some kind of nonce?" Severus demands, his voice harsh, and Lucius feels a ringing sensation of disgust.

"Where did you learn that word?" Lucius asks delicately.

"Are you?" Severus asks. He's all but shaking in his place, and Lucius feels his lips twist slightly into a frown, and then he shakes his head. "Then why you— Why's it matter when I have a bath and that?"

"Because, child, you are filthy," Lucius replies. "And you will find it much easier to make friends if you are clean and neatly dressed." Severus glances down at himself, and then at the torn hem of his robe. "I'll fix that," Lucius says. Severus' head whips up to look at him, his eyes wide. They aren't, as Lucius had suspected at first, brown – they're a deep obsidian, a shining black, and the distinction between his iris and his pupil is nearly impossible to make at a glance.

"Why?" he demands.

"Because we are both Slytherins, Severus," Lucius says simply. "And Slytherins look after our own." Suspiciously, Severus looks at him, but then he begins to follow after Lucius once more, and Lucius leads him down the corridor.

"Where we going?"

"Where _are_ we going, do you mean?"

"You gonna correct my grammar all the time?"

"Absolutely not, no," Lucius says. "I am _going to_." Severus makes an exaggerated tutting sound that belongs more to a forty-year-old woman than it does to an eleven-year-old boy, and it makes Lucius' lips twitch in amusement.

"Lucius," Severus says. "Where _are_ we going?"

"We are here," Lucius says, and he lets Severus step in front of him and through the doors. Standing stockstill, Severus stares at the neat rows of crisp-linened beds in the infirmary, and when he tries to scramble back, his back collides with Lucius' chest. "Madam Pomfrey!" Lucius calls into the Hospital Wing, and he closes the doors shut with an absent flick of his wand, putting his hand delicately on Severus' good shoulder.

"Mr Malfoy," Madam Pomfrey says, stepping out into the room from her office, and her gaze flits from Lucius down to Severus' face. "And who is this?"

"This is Severus Snape," Lucius says, nudging Severus to take a few steps forward. "I've brought him in for an examination."

"I don't need one," Severus says, and Lucius tightens his grip on Severus' shoulder, keeping him still in his place. Concern shining on her face, Pomfrey meets Lucius' gaze, and she reads his serious expression.

"My suspicion is a broken rib," Lucius says quietly, and Pomfrey's expression fades from concern to understanding.

"I see," she says quietly. "Thank you, Mr Malfoy. Mr Snape, come over here and sit on this bed for me, would you?" Severus does not move, and Lucius presses his lips together, pushing on Severus' shoulder and forcing him to walk forward and into the infirmary. Severus takes only a few steps on his own, looking with a distinct discomfort at Madam Pomfrey, and then glancing back at Lucius.

"Why's he gotta wait there?" he demands, sharply.

"Severus, Madam Pomfrey is a healer and a respected member of staff at this school, and you will show her the respect she is due," Lucius growls, and Severus crosses his arms over his chest. Lucius can see that Pomfrey notices the way that he sets his arms is slightly lop-sided.

"I don't want some woman looking at me who I don't even know!"

" _Lower your voice_."

"Would it make you feel better were Mr Malfoy to accompany you?" Madam Pomfrey asks, and Severus looks like a dog backed into a corner, wildly glancing from Pomfrey to Lucius.

"Dunn— I don't know. Yes. I suppose. Please." It is the "please" which gives Lucius pause, tersely delivered and with a sharp intonation, and Lucius sighs quietly. It is… Strange. This is not, from what Lucius can garner, a declaration of trust in Lucius, but instead, an act of desperation, as if he's frightened to be alone with Pomfrey.

"Would you?" Pomfrey asks, and Lucius gives a nod of his head, stepping forward. Slowly and with a great reluctance, Severus moves to sit down on one of the beds, and Lucius watches as Pomfrey draws the screen around the bed. "Is Mr Malfoy right, Mr Snape, have you got a sore side?"

"S'not that sore," Severus says. "The bruises are turning yellow, so it's getting better."

"Is the pain lessening?" Severus bites down hard on one thin, pale lip. "Would you take a big breath for me, Mr Snape? Big inhale, fill your lungs right up—" Severus breathes in, and then lets out a sharp word of profanity as he exhales. Merlin's beard, what sort of vocabulary was _used_ around this boy? "Mr Snape, I will ignore that in the face of your pain, but I should ask you not to curse in my infirmary."

"Sorry, Madam Pomfrey," Severus mutters, and he looks at Pomfrey's wand as she flicks it, murmuring quiet incantations. "That's not Latin." He says this in an accusatory manner, and Pomfrey gracefully ignores it.

"Healing spells are often from the Greek," Lucius explains.

"Why?"

"You will often find that some sorts of spells favour one language over another. Healing spells often come from Greek, or Arabic. Organisational spells, the sort of magic used in libraries, those are commonly from the Hebrew. French lends itself to many modern cosmetic spells."

"Oh," Severus says.

"It does seem like it's broken," Madam Pomfrey murmurs. "Nothing a little Skele-Gro won't fix, but I'd like to have a look at you, Severus, if that's alright. Would you be able to take off your outer robe?"

"What for? Why can't you use magic?" Severus asks.

"There are some things you can't do with magic, Mr Snape," Pomfrey says patiently, giving him a pleasant smile. "If you don't want Mr Malfoy to see, I can ask him to step back?"

"No, no, s'fine," Severus says hurriedly.

"Have you ever met a healer before, Mr Snape?" Pomfrey asks. There's a long pause.

"I'm not _stupid_ ," Severus snaps.

"I don't think you're stupid, Mr Snape," Pomfrey says consolingly. "You just seem a little nervous, and it seems as if maybe you've not had a check-up like this before." Severus shrugs his shoulders, and then winces. "Why don't I take you through what I'm looking for as I have a look at you? I can explain everything as we go."

Severus seems to consider this for a long moment.

"Alright," he mutters, and he reaches for the fastening of his outer robe, pulling it off from his shoulders and setting it down. His under robe isn't quite as oversized as his outer one, and he hesitates for a second before undoing that as well, leaving him in a stained vest and some filthy, greying underwear. Severus' skin, which has an unhealthy pallor, is riddled with scars and marks, and through the threadbare fabric of his vest Lucius can see the yellow and green bloom of bruising under his right side.

The boy looks like he's been a punching bag for _something_ , and Lucius feels nauseated at the very sight of it. Lucius reaches up, and he puts his fingers carefully against his mouth, then reaches to pull the screen completely closed.

"Very good," Pomfrey says, keeping her expression neutral, as Lucius is attempting to do himself. "Lucius, would you g—"

"You said he could stay," Severus says immediately, and Pomfrey presses her lips together, but then relents. There's a humiliated flush burning on his cheeks and his chest, and Lucius feels an unexpected burst of genuine _pity_ for the boy, and he exhales.

"I'm right here, Severus, you needn't worry," Lucius murmurs, slightly discomfited. Despite his assurance, through the most of the examination, he averts his eyes, avoids actually looking at the poor boy—

No wonder he keeps _flinching_.

 **ϟ** **~ THE INKBLOT ~** **ϟ**

Severus hesitantly rubs his hand over his right-hand side as they move back down toward the great Hall for dinner, tentatively feeling for the expected pain, and finding none. The rib, according to the mediwitch – Madam Pomfrey – had been cracked, and that's why the pain had lingered.

"She asked a lot of questions," Severus mutters.

"And you manfully answered none of them," Lucius replies smoothly. "Am I to believe that you broke a rib by falling in the park?"

"I don't know," Severus replies, enunciating all the syllables like Lucius keeps demanding. "Are you?"

"Very droll, Severus," Lucius murmurs.

"Doesn't matter if you believe it," Severus says. "I told you how I got it."

"Very well," Lucius says. For a few moments, they walk together in silence, and Severus glances at Lucius, wondering if he's going to say something else, but he doesn't. He keeps his gaze forward, just keeps walking, and Severus doesn't know if he's supposed to say something more, if he's meant to—

"Thanks," Severus mutters. And Lucius, Lucius… _smiles_.

"I think, Severus," Lucius says quietly, his voice soft and pensive, "that you have a great deal of potential. You are very intelligent, with a personal discipline that astounds me in a boy so young, and your command of Latin at this juncture is more than impressive. With that in mind, however, you are… _unpolished_. You need guidance."

"And you're gonna give me guidance?" Lucius peers down at him for a second, and Severus huffs out a breath before he says, " _Going_ to."

"Yes," Lucius decides.

"Oh," Severus says.

 _Bollocks_.


	2. Differences

"And who can tell me the difference between aconite and monkshood?" Lily raises her hand, holding it neatly above her head, and Severus stares down at the wood of the table, his jaw set. Severus doesn't like this part of classes, doesn't like it when the teachers talk to the students as if they care, doesn't like it when they test people— "How about you, Mr Snape?"

Severus glances up, staring with uncertain eyes at Slughorn, whose hands are neatly clasped together over his fat belly.

"I didn't raise my hand," Severus says defensively, and there are titters around the classroom, which makes his shoulders stiffen and raise up toward his neck, and he casts an uncertain glance behind him, at the other Slytherins and Lily's fellow Gryffindors. Why do they all know what to do? Why does everyone know what to do, except him? Slughorn smiles in a smarmy way that Severus dislikes, and Severus feels himself swallow.

"I know," Slughorn says. "But sometimes, Mr Snape, I shall call on you regardless. Can you tell me the difference?"

"No," Severus says, and when Slughorn opens his mouth to respond, he adds, "'Cause there in't one, is there? S'just different words for the same thing – they call it wolf's bane some places, and leopard's bane elsewhere, and all this other stuff. Confusing, is what it is. We should just all call it wolfsbane." Slughorn frowns at him, his caterpillar's eyebrows furrowing together like two thick pieces of yarn being knitted into one, and Severus can feel the staring eyes of everybody in the room on him. Beside him, he can hear Lily's even breathing, and he tries to synchronise his own to it, because _she_ doesn't get nervous in these big classrooms with too many people and the teachers lording it over them, because _she_ was in classes at primary school, and he doesn't like it, he doesn't—

"And what would we use wolfsbane for, Mr Snape?" Slughorn asks.

"Uh," Severus says, and he glances down at his textbook. "Well— I didn't… I didn't read everything yet, Professor Slughorn, s'just the second class, I—"

"That's quite alright, Mr Snape," Slughorn says warmly, much more warmly than people normally talk to Severus, and Severus feels like spitting, he's so uncomfortable. "Just tell me what you do know."

"It's an anti-inflammatory," Severus says. "You could use it as a diuretic, too, um, and as a pain-reliever, but it's toxic, and you have to be very careful with it. Use gloves an' that."

Behind him, Severus hears Avery whisper, _"What's a diuretic?"_ and Nott's response, _"It makes you piss more_."

"I meant in potions, Mr Snape," Slughorn says. When his lips quirk into a little smile like that, his red cheeks round out, and it makes him look like a very smug squirrel with a face full of nuts. Severus hates it. Severus hates the man – he hates most of the teachers, doesn't like the way it always feels like they're laughing at it.

"I haven't read the whole textbook," Severus says sharply. And he hasn't, because it's in alphabetical order, and wolfsbane's right at the back, because people _call_ it wolfsbane, not bloody aconite or monkshood or whatever else. What's wrong with wizards? Why can't they just standardise stuff? Even half the bloody cauldron bottoms in the room are different thicknesses.

"Quite alright." Severus looks down at the wood grain of the desk, which is stained by acids and ink and all kinds – that's just what you get, Severus supposes, for being a desk in a Potions classroom. All that stuff getting spilled, maybe interacting wrong with one another, but at least all the wood is still wood… Some of the Transfiguration desks have turned to bone and stone and steel, in some parts, transmogrified and stuck that way. He doesn't like that. It looks messy.

He doesn't look up from the desk as he talks, trying to remember everything he's read, trying to get it right, because he can't stand the idea of getting it wrong – some of them _want_ you to get it wrong, it feels like, and just want to pull the rug out from under you. He wishes all the teachers were like Binns, and that they just lectured what you needed to lecture, and you could write it down, and you didn't have to say nothing or talk to nobody.

"Well, it's— You'd use it in Wide-Eye Potion, um, and in other draughts for wakefulness and that, but only if it's across from snake fangs or another reversal agent, and you gotta be careful to make sure you don't transpose clockwise and anticlockwise stirs. It's used for treating bad dreams, too, and in heavy sedatives, but that's actually more complicated than awakening drafts, 'cause instead of just reversing the effect of the sedative nature, you gotta make sure it in't _too_ powerful, and that you're nullifying the…" Severus glances up from the desk.

Slughorn is looking at him with his eyes – which are blue, but not a nice blue, not a cold, clean blue, but a horrible bright colour like shallow water in summer time, where you think it's okay but then you walk in and you step through frogspawn or hurt something under your feet – very wide.

"D'I get it wrong?" Severus demands, sharply. "If I confused it with something else, I didn't mean to, but I told you, it's second class, and I hate how many names it has anyway, and I—"

"Mr _Snape_ ," Slughorn interrupts him, and Severus snaps his mouth shut, leaning back in his seat. "Mr Snape, you haven't been wrong _once_ , and in fact, you are more well-read than half of my O.W.L. students. Twenty points to Slytherin, my dear boy, for an _impressive_ depth of knowledge."

"You what?" Severus says, and Lily elbows him hard in the side, making him hiss. Thankfully, Slughorn goes back to the actual class, and then they're able to start brewing, which— God. God, it's… It's _great_. Severus actually feels himself relax slightly as he starts grinding snake fangs with a mortar and pestle, twisting his wrist with each movement. Slughorn is moving around the classroom as they work, following the instructions on the board, and Severus glances at Lily.

Her cheeks are slightly flushed, and she is looking at her mortar and pestle instead of at Severus or at the instructions on the board, which are made up in Slughorn's curly handwriting, which is legible, but a little ridiculous-looking.

"You alright?" Severus asks.

"Just do your potion," Lily mutters, and Severus swallows, feeling a distinct bundle of nerves and anxiety twist in the base of his belly. He's uncomfortable and he doesn't know what to say, doesn't know… And he hates how he doesn't know, _hates_ it, and he feels his temper flare slightly, his grip tightening on his mortar and pestle.

"Fine," Severus mutters, and he grinds the snake fangs with more fierceness. He lets himself focus on the brew instead of on the classroom around him, and it's like the whole thing fades away. He can look at the gentle simmer of the liquid in the cauldron, smell its slightly garlicky scent as it rises up to meet his nose, and he watches the potion's surface shift as he turns it clockwise. He doesn't like everything about it, exactly – Mum has sharper knives, with ivory handles instead of wooden ones, and he prefers the way that they stick in the palm; this mortar and pestle is made of some kind of polished stone, and isn't like Mum's neither, which is cracked but made of marble; and the desk… It makes him nervous, the desk. The stains on it, they have to be clean, but he's worried that if he drops the wrong ingredient, it'll react with old bits sunk into the wood…

"Very good, Mr Snape," Slughorn says delightedly.

"S'just a boil cure," Severus says. "S'not hard."

"Do you brew at home?" Slughorn asks. Severus squints at him for a second, trying to figure out if this is a trap, but he doesn't think it is… He's been wrong before, but he doesn't think he is.

"My ma does. Mostly cosmetics and contraceptives and that. You know. Like women buy." Something Severus doesn't like the look of changes in Slughorn's face, his eyebrows raising just slightly, his mouth shifting… What does that mean? Severus wishes he knew what more of the subtle facial expressions even meant, because Mum and Dad always look the same whether they're gonna hug him and smack him one, and their faces don't change, they don't, so what—"

"You know what a contraceptive is, then?"

"Yeah, I s'pose," Severus says. "Low heat on a long simmer, takes a night's brewing, but you need to do it by moonlight, 'cause it activates the rosinweed, 'cept some of the old books call that silphium. You need, uh, you need lily roots, and fig leaves, too, and you have to use a silver stirrer, because if you use a glass rod, it does something funny with the pheasant's eggshell, I don't understand it, exactly." Slughorn is watching him with a strange expression on his face, one that Severus has never seen before, but when he looks at Lily, Lily is looking at both of them like she's confused, like she doesn't know what's going on.

"It's because the glass is transparent, Mr Snape," Slughorn supplies. "Working by moonlight, some of the light can shine directly through the glass, and into the base of the cauldron, which can offset the slow-brewing process and make the brewing time incalculably shorter."

"Oh, right," Severus says. "None of the books ever said that."

"I suppose they didn't," Slughorn says musingly, still smiling his unsettling smile. "And you, Miss Evans, you're performing beautifully – what an excellent colour on that potion!"

"Thank you, sir," Lily says. It's so easy for her – she finds it easy, being in with teachers, and talking to them, and whatever, what have you.

"Very, very good!" Slughorn says. "Now, uh, Evans and Snape, you leave your cauldrons just there, would you? Everyone else, after you take your vials up to the top of the class – do remember to label them, boys and girls – and set them on my desk. Then, _neatly_ take your cauldrons to the sink, and pour them down the drain, one by one." Severus sets his vial down on the desk, and he hesitates as everyone else filters out of the room, and he nervously glances between Lily and Slughorn. "Let's bottle this up, shall we?"

Severus watches as his and Lily's cauldrons hover up from the desks, and each are poured into two long-necked bottles with glass stoppers. The pink liquid bubbles slightly as it slides into them, slightly thick, and then Slughorn sets the cauldrons down once more.

"Very good!" Slughorn says. "Two _perfect_ potions – three more points to Slytherin, Mr Snape, and three points to Gryffindor as well, Miss Evans."

"Thank you, Professor Slughorn," Lily says brightly. "That's so kind of you, really!"

"Thank you," Severus echoes, aware that he sounds wooden, next to Lily's cheer. "Can we go?"

"You don't have another class, do you?" Severus shakes his head, and Lily shakes hers, too – it's the last class of the day, because their Fridays are half-days, really, and they don't have much in the afternoon…

"You can go, Miss Evans," Slughorn says. "Mr Snape, I'd like you to take a walk with me up to the infirmary, and carry these potions. Could you?" Severus stiffens, and then he looks at the two bottles, reaching for them.

"I've been to the infirmary already, Professor Slughorn," Severus says. "I can walk up on my own, I won't drop 'em."

"Oh, excellent!" Slughorn says, clapping his hands together. "Very good, very good. And make sure to tell Poppy that I sent you with them, yes?"

"Yessir."

"Good boy, good boy," Slughorn says. Severus' skin crawls. "Well, off you go, children."

"Thank you, Professor Slughorn," Lily says again.

"Yeah," Severus says. "Thanks." He shoulders his bag hurriedly before he takes up the two long-necked bottles, holding one of them in each hand, and he and Lily step out into the corridor. He glances at her, wondering if she will say anything, but she doesn't, for a second: she reaches up and undoes the ribbon in her red hair, shaking it out and letting it land over her shoulders in long cascades… Severus would like to have his hair that long, he thinks. It wouldn't be nice, like Lily's, wouldn't be all shining tresses and slight curls, but he'd like the weight of it on his shoulders, would like to hide in it a little, maybe— Except that Mum always cuts his hair before it gets that long. She says he looks ridiculous, like he's got ideas above his station, if he has it really, really long.

"Why were you so rude to him?" Lily demands, after a long silence. Severus looks at her.

"Oh," Severus says. "I din't mean to be. Sorry."

"You're gonna make the teachers really annoyed at you, if you're that— You acted as if he didn't have the _right_ to talk to you, Severus." Severus presses his lips together, gripping tighter at the necks of the bottles and looking down at the black stone of the dungeon corridors as it passes beneath their feet. Their footsteps seem unnaturally loud where they echo in the halls, and Severus wishes he could walk like a cat, with all silent steps, and no noise, no echoes…

"I don't like it when they ask questions like that," Severus mutters. "Everyone knows the difference between aconite and monkshood. S'like they're trying to catch you out."

"Nobody's trying to catch you out!" Lily snaps impatiently, and Severus flinches slightly at the way her raised voice rings off the walls. After a pause, she says, "Sorry."

"Right," Severus mutters. He feels jerky and like the anxiety is bubbling under his skin, and he wants to scream, wants to right down to the Slytherin Common Room and draw the curtains around his bed and read in there, instead of anywhere else.

"What's a contraceptive?" Lily asks. Severus glances at her, and she isn't looking at him, but instead at the wall beside them, passing them by. She looks embarrassed for asking – Lily sometimes gets annoyed, when Severus knows things she doesn't know, just because he reads a little faster than she does, and his mum doesn't care if he reads books that would make Lily's parents upset. Mum doesn't really care what Severus reads, except to test him, sometimes, and then get annoyed when he gets too many answers right.

"It's a potion women take, to stop 'em getting pregnant even though they're having sex," Severus answers.

"Oh," Lily says. "Right. Of course. Why wouldn't—" She stops, frowning. "Why wouldn't someone want to have a baby?"

( _"I wish I'd never had you," Mum hisses at him as Severus tries not to let his hands shake as he takes the tweezers closer to her head, trying to grasp at the little pieces of broken glass and work them out of the skin. She flinches a little sometimes when he does it, and he feels bad, that she's hurting, but when he tried to get her to take more of a pain potion, she'd said no. "'Cause if we'd never had you, I could leave, couldn't I? I could go back home!"_

 _"Sorry," Severus mutters. "I'm sorry, Mum, I'm sorry, stay still, just— You can go back anyway, you don't have to stay—"_

 _"Oh, don't be stupid, Severus!" she snaps, and he drops the tweezers on the floor with a metallic clatter._ )

"Dunno," Severus says. "Maybe if you already had too many. Or if you weren't married to the man."

"You can't have sex when you're not married," Lily says, and she says it so plainly, with such a tone of, "that's obvious," that Severus falters. A lot of the women that buy the potion from Mum, they aren't married – some of them slappers that come to Mum haven't ever been married, he doesn't think, and they don't want kids.

"Oh, right," Severus says. He doesn't argue with her. It's maybe one of these things that kids are meant to think, and that Severus doesn't know – that's the problem, sometimes, with other kids, even with Lily, even though he tries to teach her and get her to see things like he sees things, it's… It's like they're all part of a club, and he wasn't ever invited, where they believe in weird things and stupid stories, and don't know what some things are, and he has to pretend he doesn't know too, or that he believes the stupid stories… Or they hate him.

Course, they hate him anyway, a lot of the time.

"I didn't mean to be rude to him," Severus mutters, and Lily sighs, walking a little closer to him.

"I know," she mumbles. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be so sharp with you – I just don't want any of the other teachers to get angry at you, Severus, I really don't. And everyone was so… You know, no one even knew what to think when you told him you didn't raise your hand. Sometimes they do that, they call on people who don't raise their hand, to make sure they're paying attention, or in case they're too shy to put their hand up."

"Well, how am I s'posed to know that? Not everyone got to go to school, you know."

"Oh, _got to_ ," Lily says. "Like it's such a delight to be in a classroom."

"Well, exactly!" Severus says. "Asking me the difference between aconite and monkshood, acting like it's such a hard question, what was I meant to do? It's _trickery_ is what it is, trying to catch you out, and I don't like it, I don't want to feel as if I'm on a podium and getting poked at to see if I respond the right way, I just—"

"Mr Snape!" comes a squeaky voice as Severus and Lily come onto one of the higher staircases, and Professor Flitwick peers down at them from the landing. "What's that in your hands?" Severus stands frozen, aware that "what's that?" rarely has a correct answer, and his grip is white-knuckled on the bottles, his body very stiff.

"Boil remover, sir," Lily answers smoothly.

"Did Slughorn put you up to this?" Flitwick asks.

"Said to take it to the infirmary," Severus says. "Give it to Madam Pomfrey." Flitwick tuts, looking irritated, and he steps to the side of the stairwell, gesturing for Severus and Lily to pass him by.

"Off you go, then." He mutters to himself as he goes, about Slughorn using students to transport potions from one side of the castle to the other, and Lily giggles a little as they keep moving up the stairs.

"Arthur Weasley says that Professor Flitwick _hates_ Professor Slughorn," Lily whispers.

"Why?" Severus asks.

"Don't know," Lily says, hopping up the steps two at a time, then waiting at the landing for Severus to show her which corridor to take off the landing. "What are you doing after this?"

"Going down to the Common Room, I s'pose," Severus says. "I wanted to maybe sleep a bit, then write that essay for McGonagall."

"She only assigned it this morning," Lily says. "You can relax a little, you know – it's not due until next Wednesday." Her tone is very gentle, very kind, and Severus turns to glance at her, a little uncertain.

"Oh," Severus says. "Well, um, I thought… I guess finish my potions textbook, then. And then start—"

" _Severus_ ," Lily chastises him, and Severus blinks. "You know, we're allowed to relax. It's the weekend! We can, you know, we could play Gobstones." Severus hesitates for a second. He's seen some of the other kids play Gobstones, seen it in play – it's like marbles, except that they spit at you if you mess it up, and leave a horrible mess on your face and your clothes.

"I don't have a set," Severus says, instead of voicing this thought.

"Well, nor do I, but I bet I could borrow one," Lily says. "Or Exploding Snap, would you like to play that?" Exploding Snap – cards, except they blow up on you, and burn your fingers. Severus doesn't understand wizards, not really, but he doesn't know that he understands Muggles, either.

"I never played before," Severus says.

"You don't have to, um… You don't have to spend time with me, you know, if you don't want to," Lily says. "If you want to spend time with your Slytherin friends instead, I mean."

"I don't have any Slytherin friends," Severus says.

"Well, not yet," Lily replies immediately. "But, you know, you should— You know, I think you should try to make friends with them, Severus. Ask people's names, and talk to them a little… You know. Be friendly."

"Friendliness isn't my strong suit," Severus says, and Lily laughs a little ruefully, but it doesn't feel unkind, or nasty. It never feels nasty, coming from Lily – she's the only person in the world he's ever known to be genuinely kind, and genuinely warm and friendly… No one else looks at him like Lily looks at him, like he's just a person, like there's nothing weird about him. He knows there's weird stuff about him, he knows… "I'll try, Lily."

"Good," Lily murmurs. "How come you were in the infirmary before?"

"Oh, the Head Boy made me come up – I had some bruises, so he just wanted Madam Pomfrey to put some balm on 'em." Lily accepts this lie, and Severus turns his shoulder and pushes the door open with his back, holding the potions up. "Madam Pomfrey?" He sees the habited head poke out from the office, and then see her brows furrow.

"Mr Snape," Madam Pomfrey says, bustling forwards – Severus has never known a woman to bustle the way that she does, like bustling is all she knows how to do. It suits her, he thinks, to bustle. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, Ma'am," Severus says, thrusting out the potions. "Boil remover, Ma'am. Professor Slughorn asked me to bring it up."

"Oh, very good," Pomfrey says, bustling forward with a little less gusto, and she reaches for the bottles and takes them from Severus' hands, bringing them to a table at the side of the room. Severus watches her as she sets them neatly onto the shelves, and then writes a label on them. "Who brewed these?"

"Us," Severus says.

"Oh, very good!" Pomfrey says immediately, clapping her hands together, and she smiles. "And who is this, Mr Snape?"

"This is Lily Evans, Madam Pomfrey," Severus says, and he gestures to Lily, who gives Madam Pomfrey a bright smile.

"Severus and I are both from the same town," she says warmly, slinging an arm around Severus' shoulder – she's taller than he is, and he just has to accept it when she does this – and he awkwardly looks down at the ground. "We've known each other a few years, before we came here to Hogwarts."

"Yes, Ma'am," Severus says. Madam Pomfrey smiles slightly, and then she nods her head.

"Very good," she murmurs. "Well, for your troubles…" Madam Pomfrey takes a step back into her office, and she comes out with two wrapped sweets, holding them out to each of them. Severus hesitates a second, watching the way Lily takes hers and doing his best to replicate her movement.

"Thanks," Severus says.

"Thanks, Madam Pomfrey," Lily says. "Do you want us to take anything downstairs for you?"

"Oh, no, not at all," she says. "Such a lovely young lady… No, no, you two go off for the rest of your day. Bye bye!" Severus watches as Lily unwraps her sweet and pops it into her mouth, letting out a sound of surprise.

"Is it sweet?" Severus says.

"Yeah, Severus, it's a sweet," Lily replies. Severus holds out the sweet to her, and she lets out an indignant sound that's slightly muffled by the ball of sugar in her mouth. "Just _try_ it – you'll like it!"

"I won't," Severus says. "I don't like sweets."

"You don't like sweets," Lily says, taking the sweet by the edge of the wrapper and putting it into her pocket. "I've never known a boy like you, Severus Snape."

"I don't think I'm standard issue." Lily coughs as she laughs, and Severus smiles slightly, letting her walk before him onto the stairs.

"So, Gobstones, or Exploding Snap?" He doesn't want to do either. He wants to stay with Lily, wants to make her happy and hang out with her for a little longer, but he can't think of another game to suggest, can't think of some other reason to justify her spending time with him, instead of with one of the Gryffindors…

"Nah," he says. "Um, I think I'll go downstairs after all – I feel kinda sick."

"Oh," Lily says, looking at him with concern. "You should have said something to Madam Pomfrey."

"No, if I just have a nap, um, I'll feel better."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Well, okay… But tomorrow, we'll do something together?"

"Yeah, Lily," Severus says. "Whatever you want."

 **ϟ** **~ THE INKBLOT ~** **ϟ**

"Where is Severus?" Lucius asks as he comes into the Common Room, where a cluster of First Years are playing Exploding Snap together. One of them – Nott, Lucius thinks – looks around at his friends for an answer, and then looks up at Lucius. Then, he nudges Avery, Severus' roommate.

"He's in bed," Avery says, reluctantly.

"Asleep?" Lucius repeats. "It's not even five."

"He had a headache, he said," Nott says. "We said he should go up to Madam Pomfrey, but he just said we should mind our own business." Hm. The boy is… Not excelling, thus far, at making friends, and Lucius studies Avery for a long moment, taking him in, but he doesn't seem to have engaged in any especial distaste for Severus. He merely seems, as the others are, vaguely concerned, and baffled by his behaviour.

"I think he's upset about potions today," says a rather snooty Third Year boy named Parkinson.

"Why's that?" Lucius asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Well," Parkinson says. "These ones were saying he was making a right arse of himself, like he didn't expect a teacher to ask him a question."

"I don't think he'd be upset," Nott says, shaking his head and looking thoughtful. "He gained twenty points for Slytherin, because he knew all about what wolfsbane is for. I hadn't even _heard_ of it."

"Twenty-three points," Avery says. "Apparently Slughorn gave him some more points for taking some potions up to the hospital wing." And yet, here it is – the confirmation, as Lucius had expected, that the boy _is_ talented, that he _is_ intelligent. Twenty points is no small amount, for a First Year, and although Slughorn can be liberal, usually this comes in dribs and drabs, not all at once… Very good. Very good indeed.

"I'll check on him," Lucius says. "Thank you."

He knocks on the door before he enters, although there is no answer from within, and he flicks his wand to open the curtains on Severus' bed. Still fully-clothed and on top of the sheets, Severus lays on his side, his arms wrapped around a pillow. He glances at Lucius, seeming unsurprised to see him – but then, it is rather difficult to judge the expression on the boy's face, at times.

"Twenty-three points, hm?" Lucius asks.

"Go away," Severus says.

"Oh, good," Lucius says. "It's going to be one of these one-sided conversations. I was rather bracing myself for that."


	3. Break and Set

Lucius watches the boy where he curls up on the bed. His arms, which are skinny and pasty beneath the loose-fitting sleeves of his robes, are gripping the pillow against his chest very tightly, and his dark hair hangs down over his face, hiding most of it, except, of course, for that unfortunately protuberant nose.

"Sit up, Severus," Lucius says, and there's a moment's hesitation before Severus obeys, sitting up on the bed. So _small_ is the boy – Lucius had been a rather small boy, until he'd put on more weight and begun to build more muscle, but Severus, he is positively _diminutive,_ and he isn't entirely unaware of the realms of magical healing – he had noted the prominence of the child's ribs beneath his vest, all the better to be broken, he's sure, and the obvious, knobbly set of his joints beneath his skin. "Forward, please, cross-legged, on the edge of the bed."

"You're such a twat," Severus mutters, and Lucius clucks his tongue in disapproval, but says nothing more as Severus moves forward. He sits cross-legged with his feet on the edge of the bed, his shoulders hunched up toward his neck, so that his hair will hide his neck and his collar. At the very least, he had deigned to remove his boots before putting himself to bed prematurely, and Lucius can see the undarned holes in his worn socks, which are made not for a boy, but for a man a great deal larger than he is.

"Let's begin with the posture," Lucius murmurs, and with a very firm hand, he reaches forward, guiding Severus' chin up. Severus stares at him from uncomprehending eyes as Lucius adjusts the set of his shoulders, and then stands and leans behind him, running a hand down his spine until it is somewhat resembling a straight line, instead of a hooked curve.

"What're you _doing?"_

"Fixing," Lucius says, and he splays his hand on Severus' chest, shifting it slightly. Despite his verbal protests, however, the boy allows himself to be arranged like a jointed mannequin, and when Lucius is done, he cuts a far more impressive figure. His shoulders back, there's actually something of a grace in the figure of his neck and his prominent chin – the boy will never be handsome, that much is certain, but there's a certain distinctive set to his bone structure, and certainly, his visage is _unique_. Lucius leans in, looking very seriously at the boy's black eyes, and the heavy bags beneath them, at the stark lines of his cheekbones, his chin… Even scowling, his heavy brows furrowed, as they are now, Lucius feels he can see the ghost of the man this boy will become. "Has your nose ever been broken, Severus?"

Severus' frown gives way to an expression of serious thought, his head tilting to the side, his eyes shifting as he thinks. There's a deep intelligence in those eyes, and Lucius cannot help but wonder how many books this boy has read, before he came to Hogwarts – he reads very quickly, despite his stunted uncertainty in spoken conversation, and he seems to work through the books he selects from the library very quickly. "Dunn— I don't know. I don't think so. I've cracked it before, and had it bleed, but I don't think I ever actually broke it. Why'd you move me like that?"

Ah.

It is not patience that has the boy so permitting of Lucius' hands manipulating his posture, then – it is purest curiosity, and now that Lucius knows to look for it, he sees it shine like a light in the dim of Severus' eyes.

"Your posture is very bad," Lucius says. "Not only does this make you look smaller than you are, but it must wreak havoc upon your shoulders. Does your back ever ache, boy?" Severus shrugs, and then experimentally shifts his obscenely sharp shoulders, rolling them in place. "When your spine is heavily slouched, you see, the muscles are compressing in a way they oughtn't, and this means you get all sorts of twists and tangles. The human body is meant to be active, Severus, not stiff and curled in a ball, the neck hunched, the shoulders stiff."

"Not if it's dead," Severus says.

"Well, when you are dead, Severus, you have my permission to hold your neck and shoulders at any unnatural angle you like." Severus sniggers, looking down at his lap, and Lucius feels himself smile slightly himself. "How were your classes, this past week?"

"Alright," Severus says. "You bothering everybody, or just me?"

"Just you."

"How come?"

"Do you mean, _why_?"

"What's wrong with saying how come?"

"It is befitting a low station."

"I am from a low station," Severus says. "My da works in the steelworks, and my ma just sells a few potions when she can out from the cellar."

"Steelworks, what is that?"

"S'a factory, in't it? They make steel. Except some of 'em have been closing, the past few years, and it's harder for my da to get work… And he drinks." He says this last bit very quickly, with a furtive glance up toward Lucius' face, as if he is trying to gauge how Lucius will react, but Lucius keeps his expression entirely neutral. "So no one wants to hire him anyway."

"I see," Lucius says. "And when he _is_ employed, your father, what manner of duty does he perform?"

"You mean, what's his job?"

"Precisely."

"He just does whatever he gets," Severus says. "Works on the line, or he turns stuff, works machinery… Helps on the gantry. He lost half his two fingers on this hand in a bit of belt," Severus adds, and he holds up his left hand, bending the two smallest fingers to show the bend at the knuckle.

"Your fingernails are filthy," Lucius says, and Severus glances at them like he's never seen them before. They are slightly yellow – something that will hopefully be remedied with a better diet here at Hogwarts, because Lucius shudders to think what he was eating back at home – and cracked in places, but the filth cakes beneath them, deep into the nailbed.

"Oh," Severus says. "Sorry." On his face is an expression of utter incomprehension. He closes his hands into fists, that he might not further examine them, and then he says, "Wizards don't have factories, do they?"

"They exist," Lucius says. "I believe the Americans are great proponents of the industrial complex, but what you have to remember, Severus, is that the wizarding population is a great deal smaller than the Muggle population. That is why Muggles are so dangerous." Severus says nothing, his lips loosely pressed together. "Mr Nott and Mr Avery inform me that you earned twenty-three points for Slytherin house today."

"Yeah."

"What, pray, did you do to earn Professor Slughorn's most auspicious approval?"

"Is _he_ a nonce?" Severus asks.

"You really must stop using that word quite so liberally," Lucius says, not bothering to mask his distaste.

"Well, I don't know the posh word for it. Is he— You know, bent? Nasty." Lucius cannot help himself, at the audacity of the boy's line of questioning, and he leans back on the other bed, putting his hand over his eyes and chuckling to himself. " _Lucius_ ," Severus says plaintively, with a note of something similar to worry, and Lucius shakes his head.

"No," Lucius says. "You have nothing to fear from Professor Slughorn's affections – he… How best to put this? He _collects_ students he considers to be impressive, that he believes will go on to be innovators, or otherwise important or powerful. It is something of an exercise in ego, that he might cite himself as an influence on them when they go on to do great things."

"S'that why you're following me around and making me sit up straight?" Severus asks, seeming amused at the idea. "In case I do great things?"

"Something like that."

"You're mad." He says it so quickly that Lucius can taste the belief that lingers in his tone, and Lucius just shakes his head slightly. How he complains, and yet the boy retains his new posture, keeps his back straight, his chin high… Stubborn, but in _want_ of guidance. Perfect. "I didn't like how he looked at me."

"No?"

"No. Like… I don't know. Like he was trying to figure me out, like he was trying to work out what I was thinking, except he din't do it like you do it He wasn't… You know, it wan't _obvious_. He wan't—"

" _Wasn't_."

"He wasn't looking at me like, you know, like he was admitting to it. You know, you move me about and move my chin or whatever, and you look at me really concentratedly, and I dunno what you're thinking, but I know that you're just… Doing something. Whereas him, he looked at me like he was trying to figure out something, but he didn't want me to know he was thinking." Lucius frowns slightly, trying to take in this particular statement, as confused as its diagram is. The boy seems to have a genuine _distress_ about him, and Lucius can't really comprehend why that might be, what…

"Well, I can assure you, Severus, none of the staff at Hogwarts will—" Lucius feels his nose wrinkle slightly, and he shifts his stance just slightly on the bed. "None of them will victimize you in that manner." Severus gives him a rather suspicious look. "And what, pray tell, is that scowl for?"

"Even Filch?" Severus asks, raising his eyebrows.

"Well," Lucius says, rather caught off guard. "Mr Filch…" Filthy Squib that he is, and certainly, there are rumours as to the man's proclivities, paired with his rather desperate desire to be permitted to whip, chain, or otherwise abuse the students, regardless of their age. "Mr Filch cannot punish you without another member of staff approving his action, and you ought be safe in that arena. Why, has he been giving you any trouble?"

"No," Severus says. "Had an encounter with him though."

"Did you indeed? What manner of encounter was this?"

"I was out by the lake on Wednesday afternoon with Lily, 'cept she came in earlier'n I did because I was reading a book and I wanted to finish it, and it was raining, and I tracked in some mud into the entrance hall, but I din't mean to, and he comes in, hollering and yelling about how he was gonna have to mop it up." Lily Evans, Lucius expects – this will be that Mudblood girl Severus insists on spending all this time with, and Lucius will have to question this, soon enough…

"And what did you say?"

"I said, well, I din't mean to. And he said, well, you did, and now I have to clean it up, and all you kids are spoilt and you don't care about clean floors, and I said I do too care about clean floors and I don't want a dirty floor any more'n you do, except I didn't notice because I was running out of the rain, and he says, well, you don't have to clean it up, do you, you horrible little toerag, and I says, well, I don't have to, but if it'll make you shut up, give us the mop." Lucius presses his lips very tightly together to keep from letting out a guffaw of sound, and he allows himself to imagine, just for a moment, Filch's face. Wide-eyed and indignant, furious and perplexed by being met with such a response from a First Year, instead of cowering and fear…

"And what did he say to that, Severus?" he asks, his voice wavering only slightly.

"Well, he sort of… Stammered and shouted a bit, like he was having an apoplexy, but in his face, and then he told me to shove off. I made sure to go back to the mat and wipe off my boots first, though." It occurs to Lucius that it's astonishing, that this eleven-year-old boy should struggle with the pronunciation of such words as "didn't" and "suppose", mangling them easily with his mix of regional and working-class accent markers, and yet casually using the word "apoplexy" causes him no hardship at all.

"Good lad," Lucius murmurs. "What did Slughorn ask you?"

"He asked me what the difference was between monkshood and aconite, and I said there isn't one."

"Very good."

"And I said we should just call it wolfsbane, and just all call it the same thing."

"Easier said than done, I fear."

"And he asked me what I'd use it for, and I told him some of the medical uses, like if you use it raw, and he says no, I meant in potions, and I said, well, you can use it in wakefulness potions if you use it with a reversal agent, or you can use it for sedatives and that, but you have to make sure it's not too powerful, otherwise you'll kill someone, and you need to nullify the poison. And he looked at me like I was crazy, and I was scared I'd got it wrong, because I told him I hadn't read the textbook yet, and I didn't even put my bloody hand up, but he called on me anyway."

"That's an awful lot of information, Severus," Lucius muses. "He was probably surprised a First Year had that breadth of knowledge."

"He said I was more well-read than some of his O.W.L. students," Severus murmurs.

"Well, _good_ ," Lucius says, and when Severus gives him an uncertain look, Lucius smiles at him. After a very long pause, where Severus looks at him as if Lucius is some manner of mad, he smiles back. It's a close-lipped smile, and very small, but it is a smile. "And then, what happened?"

"He complimented the potion, and I said it was easy, that it was just boil remover, and he asked me if I brewed before, and I said no, but my ma does, that she does stuff that women buy. You know, like contraceptives, and like boil remover and stuff for pimples, and depilatories, and that sorta thing." Lucius feels himself frown just slightly.

"You know what a contraceptive is, then?" Lucius asks in a careful tone, and immediately Severus stiffens, bearing his yellow, rather crooked teeth as he glares at him.

"That's what he said!" Severus says indignantly. "What, am I meant to be stupid? When he asked, I thought he meant how to brew it, so I told him, and he must have thought I was stupid for not knowing what he meant."

"Most boys your age wouldn't know what a contraceptive was, Severus," Lucius says in a measured tone. Severus takes this in, and then he looks across the room so that he doesn't have to look at Lucius. "I sincerely doubt Professor Slughorn thinks you to be stupid. All evidence is to the contrary."

"Lily didn't know," he says quietly, with a quiet comprehension. "And then when I said what it was for, she asked why anybody would want to not have a baby, and then she said you couldn't have sex with somebody without being married to 'em."

"I appreciate the delicacy of this question, Severus," Lucius says, doing his best to make his voice as kind as possible, "but have you ever had experience with— As you call them, a nonce?"

"No!" Severus snaps. "I'm not bloody… I'm not an _idiot_. If I know one of them bent lads is drinking and asking if I can come around and prune his flower beds, I'm not bending over for him, am I? But, you know, them in Cokeworth work the factories and that like dad, and they go to the working men's club, so it's not like I can kick up a big fuss. You just avoid it, don't you?"

"I suppose you do," Lucius says, feeling a deep sense of relief settle in his chest. "And you brought some potions up to Madam Pomfrey, did you?"

"Yeah," Severus says. "We saw Flitwick on the stairs, and he was really grumpy. Lily says Arthur Weasley says that Flitwick hates Slughorn. Why's that?"

"I couldn't tell you, Severus, he always has."

"Oh."

"What did Madam Pomfrey say?"

"Thank you. And then she gave us a sweet each. Like, a wrapped up sweet, boiled. I didn't eat mine, I gave it to Lily."

"Why did you do that?"

"Don't like them."

"You don't like sweets?"

"No."

"Just boiled sweets? Do you like chocolate?"

"Not really."

"Jellybeans? Sugar quills?"

"Never had them."

"Do you like desserts?"

"No. I don't like the sweetness. It makes me cough."

"You odd boy." Severus shrugs his shoulders, and Lucius looks at him with a distinct fascination, delighted at the sheer strangeness of the idiosyncrasy – in all his life, short as Lucius would readily admit, he does not believe he has met a boy that _didn't_ like sweets. Truly… Truly incredible. "Well, wash up for dinner. Clean those fingernails."

"Yessir," Severus says. Lucius raises an eyebrow a him, and Severus _smirks_ at him from behind his curtain of dark hair. "It really get on your nerves? When I say sir instead of Lucius? You're a big posh lad on campus – I heard Nott saying the Malfoys are new money, and that you in't that respected because you married into the Richelieus, 'cause they're French Pureblood, not British Pureblood, even though the Malfoys're an old house."

"An old house," Lucius agrees. "But not Ancient. There are twenty-eight wizarding families, known as the Sacred Twenty-Eight, whose blood lineage has never been despoiled by Muggles or Mudbloods up to the publication of the list in the Pure-Blood directory, published in 1934. But to be a member of this Twenty-Eight does not mean one's bloodline is Ancient, or Noble. These are very old titles, buried in magical history. Snape is your father's name?"

"Yes." Here, then, they return to the monosyllabic answers – Lucius is getting terribly used to this.

"A Muggle?"

"Yes."

"A brute, no doubt."

"Y— Yes." That hesitation…

"And your mother?"

"Eileen. Her maiden name was Prince."

"Prince," Lucius says. "That's an Irish family – one of the purest."

"Yes."

"You speak Irish?"

"Tá."

"Very good." Lucius stands from the bed, and he gestures for Severus to follow him. Reluctantly, Severus does, and he – to Lucius' deep delight – shifts his posture slightly as he moves, trying to put his shoulders back, his chin high. It's a little unnatural, and his movements remain a little jerky, as if he expects a blow at any moment, but the promise of grace stands in his light steps. "Now, Severus," he says, putting his hand on Severus' shoulder, which Severus looks at with suspicion. "Do you know what you're going to do?"

"Wash up for dinner."

"After that."

"Go to dinner?"

"Later. After you wash your hands, you are going to go and sit down with your year mates and make conversation with them."

"Oh, no, no, I don't want to—"

"What a shame. Nonetheless, you shall." Lucius gently shoves the boy in the middle of the shoulders, and with a vague grumble, Severus steps out into the hall and walks toward the bathroom.

Leaving the boy to it, Lucius moves through the intersecting corridors of the Slytherin dormitory, stepping into his room and pausing for a moment in the mirror, drawing his hair up behind the nape of his neck and tying it with a neat, black ribbon. Lying on the bed, reading with his focus directly upon the page, his gaze moving behind his glasses, Aubrey Crowley settles in his place.

"How are you, Aubrey?"

"Oh, very well, Lucius, very well," Aubrey says absently. He is a chronically pale man with very blond eyebrows and thin, blond hair – it is not as Lucius' is, a sort of silver, nor the burnished gold of some of their other housemates, but a sort of strawberry blond that light passes easily through. His sister, Augusta, is one of the new prefects this year, and each of them have their own brand of vague incompetence. "Is it four o'clock, yet?"

"Aubrey," Lucius says, glancing back from the mirror at the other man. "It's just past six." Aubrey blinks, his hazel eyes widening only marginally as he takes in the fact.

"Ah. The passage of time," Aubrey says, and looks back to his book.

Aubrey has been Lucius' dormitory partner since they first arrived in his first year, and he has always retained a slightly detached quality. It isn't dreamy or confused, but merely focused on other things, as if the bare essentials of the real world about him can't possibly mean anything to a man such as Aubrey Crowley.

Of course, they shouldn't mean anything to him for much longer, Lucius supposes. With his grades, Lucius expects the Department of Mysteries will snap him up, and he'll put on the masked robes of the Unspeakables forevermore.

Lucius bootsteps are quiet as he makes his way up through the dungeons, and he makes his way up the stairs. As he moves, he considers to himself whether this is entirely the correct decision, and yet he sees no other recourse – he is overstepping, perhaps, but as Head Boy, it is his duty to look after the students, especially those of his own house… It's a matter of duty, and Lucius has always taken duty very seriously. Always.

Pausing for a moment, he raps his knuckles against the closed oak door, and at the call of, "Come in," he neatly turns the door handle and steps inside, leaning in toward the doorway without entirely stepping inside. Professor McGonagall sits at her desk, her back straight, her quill beside a bottle of green ink as she completes her marking, and she glances at Lucius with some surprise.

"Professor McGonagall, I wondered if I might have a moment of your time," Lucius says. "It's a somewhat sensitive matter."

"Of course, Mr Malfoy, please, come in," McGonagall says. The uncertainty is plain in her face as Lucius moves inside and pushes the door shut with a quiet click, and he moves to sit down at the chair she gestures to, leaning back in her seat and clasping her hands tightly together. McGonagall is a severe but handsome-looking woman, and Lucius has always held respect for her, but never has he stepped inside her office, except when he had dragged one particularly unpleasant Gryffindor boy to her mercies last year, after he had almost drowned a First Year Ravenclaw with an overpowered dousing spell. "Is this about your Transfiguration N.E.W.T.? Because I must say, Mr Malfoy, you comfortably achieved an O with your O.W.L., and I don't feel that you should find it that difficult to achieve the same again."

"No, Professor McGonagall, I feel comfortable with my Transfiguration studies thus far," Lucius says. "I am afraid this is about one of my First Years, Severus Snape." McGonagall's lip twitches, betraying the slightest amount of amusement or humour, and Lucius feels himself frown.

"I am not laughing at the boy, Mr Malfoy," McGonagall says, gesturing with her hand. "Merely that I've known very few Head Boys or Girls that showed such a protective possession over their students, that is all. Mr Snape has shown a great deal of interest in my classes thus far, and I haven't heard a member of staff say a negative word about him – in fact, I even had Mr Filch inquiring as to the boy, and saying that he liked, I believed he phrased it, _the cut of his gib_. You can imagine, I suppose, what high praise that is from our esteemed caretaker."

Lucius feels himself smile slightly, and he gives a nod of his head. "I harbour no worries as to Severus' performance in his classes, Professor McGonagall – it seems as if the boy has read half of the books in the library already, and Professor Slughorn actually awarded him twenty-three house points this morning for his outstanding performance." McGonagall raises her eyebrows, showing some surprise, and Lucius adds, "I'm afraid it is the matter of his home life that concerns me."

"You've met the boy before Hogwarts, Mr Malfoy?"

"No, Professor, I've known him these two weeks past."

"Then how," Professor McGonagall asks in a deceptively gentle voice, "should you know as to his home life?"

"Severus' father is a Muggle, Professor McGonagall, and—"

"Mr Malfoy—"

"Please, _do_ allow me to finish before you accuse me of prejudice." McGonagall leans back slightly, pressing her lips tightly together, and Lucius says, "You are of course aware of my family's opinions on the matter of unions between the magical and the mundane, but that is besides my consideration. Severus' father is a Muggle, and an alcoholic. I believe that the man broke the boy's ribs before he came to Hogwarts." McGonagall's brow furrows, and she looks at him with a serious look in her eyes, her jaw shifting in its place. "If you speak with Madam Pomfrey, she ought be able to confirm this for you, but I brought him to her to heal two cracked ribs on one side. Severus said that he fell down the stairs, but the line of bruising was entirely straight, like the edge of a table, as if somebody had shoved him into one. Moreover, the boy's body is _riddled_ with scars and marks – and before you ask why I've seen him in a state of undress, it is because he was so terrified to be left with a stranger, despite knowing her to be a mediwitch, that he insisted I remain in attendance as she treated him. There is a—"

Lucius exhales, reaching up to draw a little more of his hair back from his face, and he feels his fingers as they brush through the hair, doing his best to concentrate on the sensation. "Professor, there is a mark on the inside of his left arm that I believe to be from a cigarette. Moreover, the boy is unwashed, malnourished, and he _flinches_ at the slightest sound."

In a distinctly and measuredly reasonable voice, McGonagall says, "Would you like a biscuit, Malfoy?"

"I— I beg your pardon?"

"Ginger Newt?" McGonagall asks, proffering a tin, and Lucius stares down at the discs of ginger-flavoured biscuits in the base of the tin, smelling their distinctive scent come up from the metal.

"My thanks, Professor, but no." McGonagall sets the tin back in her desk drawer, and Lucius feels himself just marginally – the casual nature with which she had offered the tin has thrown him from his rhythm, and he realises that his shoulders had been stiff, his back ramrod straight. "You must have noticed, in your classroom, or in the hallways. The boy scarcely knows how to look at his peers, let alone interact with them."

"He does seem somewhat uncertain of his surroundings," McGonagall says. "But, Mr Malfoy, many poor children – particularly those from Muggle or half-Muggle backgrounds – are set off-balance by the sudden boarding school environment, especially an entirely magical one. Anxiety is no proof of abuse. However, I will liaison with Madam Pomfrey and speak with her about Mr Snape, if it will help assuage your fears. What is it you would like to do about the situation?"

"I—" Lucius feels himself come to a stop, his train of thought stubbornly refusing to continue onward. "I fear I couldn't tell you, Professor McGonagall. I suppose it is my belief that a neglected, beaten child ought be removed from such an environment. And— Well. I should feel that to be enough. There is legislation as to the neglect and mistreatment of a child, is there not?"

"There is," Professor McGonagall says. "I don't disbelieve you, Mr Malfoy – I'll speak to Madam Pomfrey and we'll see what might be done. Does Mr Snape know you've come to me?"

"No," Lucius says.

"I might warn you that it's not easy to remove a child from a home without inalienable proof of such abuses, and that the abuse is worse than the disruption of their home life. I shouldn't think you would be surprised, Mr Malfoy, to know that the Ministry of Magic fails somewhat in this arena." Sighing ruefully, Lucius shakes his head, and McGonagall says, "Might I ask you something?"

"Of course. Anything."

"Why come to me instead of Professor Slughorn? He is Head of House to both of you, after all, is he not?"

"I feared you might ask me that." She smiles just slightly, and it occurs to Lucius that he doesn't know that he's seen her smile before, or if he has, perhaps he has never noticed. "My father was a member of Professor Slughorn's aptly named club, Professor McGonagall, and the two of them still speak often to one another. I shouldn't like news of this to reach my father." The smile very slowly drips from McGonagall's face, and her expression returns to its ordinary stern visage.

"Because of the boy's blood status," she says. That is not it. Lucius' father has no especial care for Half-bloods, but he does not despise them as he does Mudbloods, and does not look upon them with such blatant disgust: it is Lucius' care for his underclassmen that upsets his father. He thinks it makes Lucius soft, that he should care if a First Year lives or dies: Lucius' father has never had any real comprehension of duty, nor the care that goes with it. And he and Slughorn are one and the same, in many ways – Slughorn will ply any information he pleases, with the right amount of drink…

"Yes," he says, and McGonagall quietly sighs.

"You aren't a member of Horace's _Slug Club_ , are you?"

"No, Professor."

"And yet, I've heard from Professors Flitwick and Babbling respectively that you are a dab hand at warding. Professor Flitwick once called you a potential innovator, Professor Lucius."

"That was very kind of him, Professor McGonagall."

"True enough. But why, pray, would a young man declared an innovator by Filius Flitwick, go unnoticed by the _careful_ attentions of Professor Horace Slughorn?" Lucius feels his lips twitch slightly, and he looks at McGonagall's slightly sardonic expression – she is, he thinks, doing her level best to distract him from his distaste and his uncertainty, and he actually feels a warm glow of gratitude for the care it shows. Professor McGonagall, unlike Slughorn, comprehends duty.

"Perhaps because that young man only speaks about his interest in warding _to_ Professor Flitwick, knowing that said professor is ever on ill-terms with Professor Slughorn, and would not pass on such a thing."

"Will you pursue warding as a career, Mr Malfoy? When your school career is through?"

"Professor McGonagall, I am a Malfoy. My duty will be to take over some of the family duties, and later to take on my role as patriarch. My father's health has been ailing, in recent years, although he's very private about it." Abraxas Malfoy, in all truth, is the very picture of good health, and he always has been, but Lucius always makes a point of mentioning that he is sickly within the private sphere… Lucius is aware that when the time comes to kill him, it will be best for such rumours to be well-circulated, and these rumours have already been two years in the making.

Duty.

Lucius would not raise a child under the watchful eye of Abraxas Malfoy, and he _will_ have children. Three is a nice number, he thinks, assuming his wife is amenable, three—

That is, presuming he survives the war, that all goes well. What world might he raise his son in, assuming this _utter mad man_ , this monster, wins the side? A world where they might be free of the Muggles and their nonsense, live apart from them – favourable. That they no longer be threatened by their sheer numbers, their obscene grasps at greater power, that could well kill all on the planet, Muggles and wizards alike…

And yet, Lucius thinks with a sort of distance, he is aware that this war will fix none of those problems. There are better ways to go about it – better to work with politics, to subtly muscle out ridiculous Blood-traitors like the Weasleys and their ilk… But that hardly matters. Things are what they are, and Lucius has no quarrel with killing Blood-traitors or Mudbloods, merely…

It should be better controlled than this.

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Mr Malfoy," McGonagall says as Lucius gets to his feet, and he turns to glance at her. "I think perhaps that I have misjudged you in your time here."

"You were in school with my father, Professor McGonagall," Lucius says quietly. "Five years below, isn't that right?"

"Yes, Mr Malfoy, that's right. And your father would never have come into my office like this." Lucius cannot help but laugh, and he shakes his head slightly at the expression on her face: perhaps she hopes he might spontaneously offer himself to the cause against the Death Eaters, that he might declare himself entirely happy with fussing over Muggles and declaring himself in favour of miscegenation, perhaps braiding flowers into his hair and dancing naked beneath the moon with every Mudblood in Scotland.

"Perhaps not," Lucius says. "But I am not so different to my father as you think, Professor. He and I both value purity; we each value class, and consideration. That I should step in to report the abuse of a child has naught to do with other aspects of my politics." McGonagall's expression… Hardens.

Lucius is not a child, in this moment, and for a second his statement eclipses the fact of his being a student, and McGonagall's being his teacher: they look at one another, a coldness spanning the room between them.

Like being on two halves of a battlefield – perhaps they will be, one day. It's a chilling thought.

"My thanks again, Professor McGonagall. There is scarcely a member of the staff in this school that I look upon with such respect as you."

"If only I could return the compliment, Mr Malfoy." Lucius feels his lips quirk, and he draws the door open.

"I wish I could award you a point to Gryffindor, Professor," Lucius says. "Your wit is dazzlingly sharp."

 **ϟ** **~ THE INKBLOT ~** **ϟ**

"How about you, Severus?" Avery asks, and Severus glances at him, feeling himself frown. He'd been distracted, thinking about the food at dinner, and he'd zoned right out of everything going on, even as they'd kept on playing the game.

"I… Sorry, I don't think I got the question. What'd you say?"

Avery says, "D'you have a pet? An owl or…?"

"Oh, no," Severus says, shaking his head. "I like animals, I s'pose, jus don't see the point in having one."

"You prefer dogs or cats?" Parkinson acts.

"Well, cats," Severus says. "Dogs are… Big and loud, and they— You know, they slobber."

"Yeah, but cats are so standoffish," Nott says, giving him a funny look as they walk up the stairs toward the next floor. "You know, they're just so… They don't really care about you."

"It's a cat, not your soulmate," Severus says, and everybody laughs. He feels himself jump slightly at the sudden noise, but Avery pats him on the shoulder as he stops still for a second, and it's— It's a good thing, he thinks. They all laugh at his joke, and that's a positive thing, and they all did it together, so it can't be a rehearsed thing to embarrass him…

"You! Snape, in't it?" comes a demand from behind him, and the other Slytherins walk past him as Severus stops to look, trying to remember to keep his back straight and his shoulders in the right position, but it's hard, with Filch looming over him.

"Mr Flich," Severus says.

"Put your 'and out," Filch orders.

"You gonna hit me?" Severus demands, hackles rising – Lucius had said he couldn't do this, that he couldn't punish him unless another staff said, "because I said, Mr Filch, I told you I'd mop the floor myself, and you told me to—"

"Put your 'and out!" Filch snaps, and Severus acts reflectively, putting out his right hand because he doesn't need it as much, because it'll be easier not to use if he ends up with a nasty mark from a switch or a ruler or something. Severus squeezes his eyes tightly shut and flinches back slightly, but instead of the quick whistle of something thin through the air, a cold weight drops into his palm instead. Severus opens his eyes, staring down at it. "You dropped it," Filch says. "When you came in on Wednesday."

"Oh," Severus says. "Sorry. It din't spill, did it?" The ink bottle is neatly stoppered, but the cork is a little loose, sometimes.

"No."

"Oh, good. Thanks, Mr Filch." Filch grunts, waving his hand, and he walks off into the darkness of the corridor. Allowing himself to smile slightly, he turns back toward the Great Hall – they're early for dinner by a good thirty minutes, but they wanted to have a look at the hourglasses in the Great Hall, and Avery was saying he wanted to talk to a Ravenclaw about something or other.

"Oi, Snivellus!" says a voice behind him, and Severus lets out a choked noise as he stumbles back, looking alarmedly between the two boys in his face. He recognizes them from the train, that he argued with about Gryffindor and Slytherin – the one with the messy hair is Potter, and the one with the longer hair and the expensive robes is Black… And there's two more, too, a tall boy with a few little scars on his face, Lupin, and the other one, the fat one that can't string more than a few words together at a time, Pettigrew.

"Don't call me that," Severus says sharply. "Shove off an' let me go to dinner."

"He's getting very friendly with Filch," says Lupin, stepping forward so that he makes up the trio of taller boys looking down at Severus, and Severus doesn't like the look on his face, doesn't like his grin, doesn't like any of their grins. "Bet you Filch wants to give you a _special_ touch."

"Shut up, Lupin," Severus snaps.

"Oh, I don't think so, Snivellus," says Black, using a sing-song voice. "We want to have a word with you! See, James here, he says your nose was always that way."

"I'm sure of it," James says. "Grew that way, right from the start."

"But me, I think it can't possibly be normal – somebody must have spelled it that way."

"Or broken it," says Lupin snidely, his hands in his pockets. Pettigrew laughs, and it's like the way a cartoon character laughs, a little faster than it should be, and tinged with a palpable anxiety.

"No," Severus says.

"Would you like to feel one?" Potter asks.

"Would you?" Severus replies, and when he sees Potter reach for his wand, he doesn't even think about going for his own: he moves quickly with a right hook, the ink bottle still clenched in his hand, and the cork comes loose as he does it. He feels the satisfying _crunch_ of bone under the movement of his fist, feels the weird hot and cold of blood and ink on his hand at once, and Potter's yell of pain mingles with Black's cry of indignation.

Black launches himself at Severus like a dog, pinning him back on the floor and trying to punch him, but posh boys don't know how to fight, and it's almost easy to wrestle himself free – or it would be, if it wasn't three on one, even with Potter injured. Lupin grabs hold of Severus by the back of his robes, dragging him nearly off the floor so that he can't pull himself free, and Severus jumps for his wand, but Black rips it off him.

Potter is clutching at his nose, grunting out something Severus can't make out, and Severus tosses some of the ink over his shoulder, making Lupin cry out and drop him as he grabs for his eyes – for good measure, Severus elbows Pettigrew hard in the side, making him keel over.

Breathing heavily, Severus stands between the three of them, all of them injured, and he looks Black in the face. Black, who is glancing at his friends, and now looking at Severus like he isn't sure what next to do, holding Severus' wand in his hand.

"You wanna try it?" Severus asks, in a whisper. "'Cause I don't reckon you know how to do much with that wand, Black, but I can do a lot of stuff without it. D'you wanna try it? D'you wanna see where it gets you?" Black sets his jaw, resolve showing in his face, and he grips tighter at Severus' wand as Severus shifts his stance to dodge and to grab for his throat.

"Do forgive me for interrupting," says the crisp voice of Lucius Malfoy behind them, and Severus feels his blood run abruptly colder. "But perhaps this is better left for the duelling ground, cousin, and not for the Entrance Hall of Hogwarts."

"Lucius," Black says.

"Wand, now," Lucius orders crisply, and Black hands it over. With a mutter of a word, Lucius flicks his wand at Severus, and Severus jumps, but all it does is clean the blood and the ink off his hand, and Vanish the bottle he'd been holding.

"Can I have my wand back?" Severus asks.

"When I know I can trust you with it," Lucius says, and Severus feels an uncomfortably tight feeling grab at his belly and twist it around. "You, dinner, now." His expression is as cold as ice, and Severus swallows to himself.

"Areb't you gon'do anyfing!?" demands Potter.

"Yes, Potter, I'm going to take you and Lupin up to the hospital wing, directly," Lucius says. "You, Pettigrew, are you seriously injured?" Pettigrew stares at him, his mouth opening and closing, his eyes wide, and Lucius glances to Black. "Is he deficient?"

"No!" Sirius snaps. "He's just nervous because you're a great big lug talking down at him!"

"Then take him into dinner!" Lucius barks, and Severus likes the way that Black backs down slightly, jumping back from Lucius' authoritative tone and the way he shifts his arm to point at the Great Hall's closed doors.

They move toward them, and behind him, Severus hears Potter say, " _Ar'you gobba tell McGobagall?"_

He doesn't hear the answer, because Black grabs him by the neck, pulls him close enough that they're nose-to-nose, and whispers, "You shouldn't have done that, Snivellus." It's not even a creative name. Perhaps that's why it's so deeply frustrating, so irritating, so _childish_ – Severus hates other children, he's always hated other children, and this, these lads, they're so much worse.

"You're right," Severus hisses back. "I should've broken _your_ nose an' all." They both shove one another away at the same time, and Severus hurries to sit down at the Slytherin table. He shakes his head irritably when one of the other First Years tries to make conversation with him, and he sits in silence for the rest of the night.


	4. Serious Discussion

"Ar'you gobba tell McGobagall?" Potter asks as they move up the stairs, and Lucius presses his handkerchief to the boy's hand, which he immediately brings up to his nose. He hisses in pain, but Lucius is concentrated on the Lupin boy, who is breathing rather heavily, and who stumbles on the stair.

"Lupin, can you see at all?" Lucius asks.

"If I open my eyes, maybe," Lupin mutters. "But this stuff is quick dry, and it doesn't half smart."

"I'm going to carry you," Lucius decides, and before Lupin can object, he bends and takes the boy up on his shoulder, one arm braced against the back of his legs to keep him in place; his other hand is settled on the scruff of Potter's robe, keeping him in line. The boy is very light despite how tall he is, his frame just as lanky as it looks, and he lets out a surprised noise, but doesn't struggle as Lucius hurries them each up the stairs.

"Idn't he heaby?" Potter asks, looking up at him with apparent surprise on his face.

"Not especially heavy, no."

"I'm going to get ink in your hair," Lupin says miserably.

"You already got blood on one of my First Years," Lucius says darkly, and Lupin shuts his mouth. Beside him, Potter scoffs, then lets out a low whimper of pain. It's more than undignified, for a group of proper young wizards to be caught fist-fighting and scuffling like a pack of Muggles, but there is the slightest bit of—

 _Satisfaction_.

Four boys had surrounded Severus, disarmed him, and not only had Severus not panicked, not screamed or screamed or caused a scene, but he had held his own. More than held his own – he had easily incapacitated three out of four of his foes, and Lucius is certain that he watched for a minute longer, he would have made quick work of Black, too. It had been so curious to watch him: an ugly little thing, bat-like and of odd proportion, and yet so well-practised in this arena, plainly used to boys larger than himself attempting to tousle with him… If they can channel that aggressive energy into duelling, why, he will be more than a force to be reckoned with: the boy will be a _terror_.

"He starded it," Potter mutters.

"Did he indeed? And how did Severus _start_ it, Potter?"

"He tried to hex Peder," Potter says. Lucius can see the way the blood is eking into the silver of his handkerchief, but as much as he knows the House Elves at Hogwarts are inferior to those at Malfoy Manor, they ought be able to deal with the stain. Curious, that Potter should lie to him so readily – Lucius had witnessed the whole tousle, as the children had hardly been overzealous in looking about themselves for witnesses, but he is curious to see exactly where this path of deception should lead.

"Why?" Lucius asks.

"Because Peter's the easiest target, isn't he?" Lupin asks. "Can you take house points off us?"

"I can," Lucius says. "Most of the prefects aren't able to, but you will find that I or Reetha Lanjwani, the Head Girl, might do so if it suits us. As it stands, I shall take you to the infirmary." This statement rings in the silence as they move up into the corridor and begin to walk to the Hospital Wing.

"You going to tell Pomfrey what happened?" Lupin asks, but Lucius is already pushing open the doors to the infirmary, and he snaps his fingers and points to a bed.

"You, Potter, there."

"Mr Malfoy!" Madam Pomfrey says. "I was just on my way down to dinner."

"You and I both, Madam Pomfrey," Lucius says, and he carefully sets Lupin down on the bed across from Potter's. "Quick dry ink in the eyes," he says, gesturing to Lupin, and Pomfrey lets out a low clucking sound, immediately moving to have a look at him. As she works on Lupin, Lucius moves toward Potter, who looks at him uncertainly, his eyes shifting as he takes in Lucius' expression. "Put the handkerchief down."

Potter hesitates, but then he obeys the instruction, and Lucius draws out his wand, performing a delicate wand movement and saying, " _Episkey_." He hears the quiet _crack_ of Potter's nose shifting back into place, and hears a relieved noise and a sigh, and he walks away, taking up a wet cloth from the side and returning to carefully clean some of the blood away from the boy's mouth and nose.

"If you could do that, why are we in the infirmary?"

"Because a crack on the nose like that one can cause brain damage," Lucius says, concentrating on gripping the boy's chin and keeping him still as he cleans the blood away. A little of it stains his cuff, but it will come away with the right charm. "Besides, that spell is good for superficial injuries, but nothing further into the skull, so you might have a little cartilage or bone in the wrong place, obstructing your airway."

"Oh," Potter says. There is a long pause, and then he says, "Thank you." _Manners_. Why, blood truly does out.

"You are quite welcome," Lucius murmurs, and he walks away, setting the wet cloth into the bowl and watching as the bowl cleans the blood away, a little steam rising from the water. "Wait there, Potter." He moves to the other bed, and he watches as Madam Pomfrey works, carefully using an instrument with which Lucius is unfamiliar to wash water into one of Lupin's eyes and then the other, working with a great delicacy.

"No permanent damage, I take it?" Lucius asks.

"No," Pomfrey says, shaking her head. "Although I suspect Mr Lupin will be more wary of ink bottles in future. What happened?" A long pause sounds as Lupin opens his mouth, then closes it, and Lucius meets Potter's gaze as it lands on Lucius, seeming to take him in, searching for some sign, perhaps, of what he might say. As if Lucius is going to say a _thing._

"We were wrestling," Potter says, finally. "In the dormitory. Not _fighting_ , just playing, roughhousing. It was my fault – I knocked Remus into Peter's end table, and the ink bottle was open, so it just scattered in Remus' eyes and the bottle hit the floor. He caught my nose when he lashed out to try and grab something, 'cause he couldn't see."

"Everyone else had already gone to dinner," Lupin says seamlessly, and then adds, "James was gonna just support me up the stairs, but he didn't know where the infirmary was, but then Malfoy saw us and brought us up. Carried me, and lead James."

"You _carried_ him, Mr Malfoy?" Pomfrey asks, seeming amused.

"I thought it better than allowing him to tumble to his death from one of the staircases," Lucius says casually. "Why, was I wrong?"

"Mr Malfoy," Pomfrey scolds him, and Lucius feels his lip twitch. "Five points to Slytherin, I think – you've went somewhat beyond your Head Boy duties this evening, I think; and five points from each of you boys." Pomfrey presses something into Lucius' hand. "Hold this to his eyes for the next five minutes, would you?"

Lucius cups the back of the Lupin boy's head, and he holds the compress against his eyes, feeling him shiver slightly, but he doesn't drag away, doesn't complain. He has the air that many sickly boys have, wherein he takes medical attention with exhausted exasperation, knowing that struggling will do him no good. He just sits very still, his hands loosely settled between his knobbly knees, and Lucius watches as Pomfrey checks Potter out, ensuring he's alright. There is, from what Lucius can gather, no permanent damage, but the boys…

Lying like that, so easily. From what he knows, Lupin and Potter have only just met this September 1st, and yet they've fallen into step, so easily, so readily, lying with such a plain fluidity… It really is something, but not a _positive_ something. Merlin knows Gryffindors banding together with this sort of alacrity is the sign of trouble on the horizon, and Lucius really can't be bothered with dealing with it.

This year hardly lays claim to the first time he's brought a child into the infirmary: part and parcel of one's position as prefect seems to be in bullying the younger children to see a Healer when they need to, although this is certainly the first time he's had to _carry_ one. By the time the boys are quite healed, Lucius takes a moment to walk with Pomfrey, and she offers him a small, knowing smile.

"Rough-housing in their Common Room," Pomfrey murmurs, pulling the infirmary doors closed behind them and letting them lock with a click. "The things they expect one to believe."

 **ϟ** **~ THE INKBLOT ~** **ϟ**

Severus watches as Lucius sweeps into the Great Hall some forty minutes into dinner, his robes flowing artfully behind him as he moves forward, and showing the green silk lining of his outer robe. Madam Pomfrey had come in a few moments ago, flanking a quite-healed Potter and Lupin, but to Lucius… There's an easy grace to the way he moves, like iceskaters on the telly, and Severus wishes he could move like that, all with that confidence and breezy movements.

He's sick with anxiety, and he's barely touched anything on his plate, sitting in silence beside the other First Years, who occasionally try to make conversation with him, but he feels brittle and uncertain, doesn't really want to be spoken to right now. He hasn't been able to ignore the twisting discomfort in his belly, and when Lucius comes in, he almost hopes he'll come right up to Severus, so that they can get this over with now, but he doesn't.

He sits down across from a handsome boy with nut-brown skin and grey eyes, who says something casually to him, that makes Lucius laugh. It's an airy sound, casual and easy, as if he isn't thinking of Severus Snape a few rows up the table, and Severus fidgets.

He just wants it… _done_.

He can take someone shouting at him, he can take a beating, he can even take a nasty jinx if it has to be that way, but what he hates is the waiting, the anticipation that builds up to the inevitable conclusion, even if it takes days upon days of slow stewing, just to leave him on edge…

Christ, he hopes it won't take days.

"Severus, are you finished?" Prefect Crowley says when people begin to filter from the room and Severus stands to go, frowning at him, and he shrugs his shoulders. "Well, alright…"

He steps out from the bench, walking between the wall and the table, and as he passes behind Lucius, the older boy's hand whips out behind him, stopping Severus from passing. Severus stops short, glancing down at Lucius' hand, the palm facing away from Severus and keeping him in his place, and then he glances at the back of Lucius' head.

"I agree with you," he is saying. "I merely think that in the event of a revolt by the Dementors that Azkaban is as much a liability as a boon." Severus opens his mouth, but the conversation moves too quickly, both parties not acknowledging his presence, except for Lucius' hand stopping him from moving. He could side step him, of course, and walk anyway, but something tells him it is best to bite the bullet and linger.

"But what else _could_ we do with them?" the handsome boy says, spreading his hands. "Lucius, this is our treaty with the Dementors: had they not Azkaban, we would have nothing with which to bargain with, and the would roam freely once more. There is no known method to kill a Dementor."

"I hardly believe _that_ ," Lucius murmurs, stepping up from the table without looking at Severus, without even glancing _back_ at him, and Severus feels a little colour rise high in his cheeks, heating the skin. "Who is to say what goes on in the Department of Mysteries?"

"Conspiracy theorist," says the handsome boy, with a kind of filthy tone that Severus doesn't like.

" _Conspirator_ ," Lucius replies, jabbing a playful finger in his direction, and he laughs, leaning back. His eyes, which are the colour of flint, flit to examine Severus, and then he glances back to Lucius. "Good evening, Conrad."

"Good evening, Lucius," Conrad says, and Severus starts walking again only when Lucius' hand touches between his shoulders, pushing for him to move. Severus puts his hands into his sleeves, wishing he had proper trouser pockets to put them in, and he walks out of the Great Hall with Lucius behind him, expecting some snap, but none comes.

"Common Room," Lucius says quietly, and Severus sets his jaw, not letting himself speak as they walk in ringing silence down toward the dungeons. Severus' footsteps, which echo loudly on the stone floor, make him stiffen and feel stupid and clumsy; Lucius' are quiet and graceful, and the sound of them is _clean_ , like the sound of all of them has been carefully clipped into being separate from one another. This is awful. This is horrid. Severus has had this once or twice before, when he was younger, having to walk home with Dad from the working men's club after Severus had been sent to get him to come home, knowing that he'd snap at him once they were in the house, or worse, at Mum.

When they get into the Common Room, Lucius walks ahead of him, opening a door into an anteroom Severus hadn't noticed before and gesturing for him to step inside. It's a little lounge, and like the ceilings in the bedrooms, you can see the lake outside, but the window is right in the middle of where the merpeople are, and when Severus looks up, he can see them all flitting past, around some great palace.

"Look at me," Lucius says, and Severus holds himself stiff and straight, closing his eyes tightly when Lucius' fingers touch his chin, delicately turning his head one way, and then the other. "Did they hurt you?"

"No," Severus says.

"Good," Lucius says. "Sit down." Severus sits down slowly on a low couch, and Lucius sits down across from him. The movement is fluid, one smooth shift of one long leg over the other as Lucius leans back slightly in the chair, his shoulders loose, and he just looks… _Powerful_. Severus wishes he could look like that, wishes he could look so controlled, so put together. For a long minute or so, they sit in silence, Lucius' blue-grey eyes focused on Severus as he does his best not to fidget, or squirm. Finally, he says, "Well?"

"Well what?" Severus asks.

"Have you nothing to say for yourself?" Lucius asks, in the tone of somebody expecting that you _do_ have something to say for yourself, and that it'd better be damned good.

"Not really," Severus says.

"Explain," Lucius says.

"Well, Filch stopped me before I could go in the Great Hall, and he gave me back an ink bottle I'd dropped the last day, but then when he walked away, Potter and his friends came and had me like… They made fun of my nose, and called me Snivellus, and when James asked if I wanted a broken nose, I asked if _he_ did."

"And you gave him one," Lucius says mildly.

"S'not like Madam Pomfrey couldn't fix it."

"And you threw ink in Lupin's eyes."

"Well, he said Filch was gonna try and shag me."

"You elbowed Pettigrew in the belly. What did he say?"

"Nothing. He was just there." Lucius crosses his arms very tightly over his broad chest, leaning back just slightly, and he stares at Severus like he's trying to see his bones under his robes and his skin, and see what's wrong with them, to make him this way. "Well, what was I meant to do? There was four of 'em, and Black had my wand because they ganged up on me, so it's not like I could use any jinxes or that." Lucius arches one graceful, silver-blond brow.

"Do you _know_ any jinxes?"

"Don't see what that has to do with anything," Severus mutters. "S'not sportsmanlike, all of 'em trying to come at me at once. Besides, I'm half their size, especially Pettigrew and Lupin, so it's not my fault they're all Nancy boys who grew up with all that money and got no exercise, except swanning about on their brooms and running from their nannies." A beat passes, and Severus adds, "No offence."

"Why, pray, should I take offence to a statement like that?" Lucius asks wryly. Severus shrugs.

"If the boot fits."

"Severus, you look as if a stiff wind could kill you. I hardly think it will suit you well to disparage the health of _any_ of your classmates."

"S'not my fault," Severus snaps, feeling the defensive burn of humiliation come up hot in his veins. "'Sides, I'd rather have a stiff wind kill me than have a silver spoon shoved up my arse!" Silence reigns.

Then, Lucius sighs, and he reaches up, touching his thumb and his forefinger to either side of the bridge of his nose, and then he reaches into his pocket and draws out Severus' wand, holding it out to him by the hilt. Severus all but snatches it back, shoving it back up his sleeve.

"Don't snatch, Severus," Lucius says tiredly.

"Sorry," Severus says, without feeling. "They tell McGonagall?"

"They did not," Lucius says mildly. "When I brought the both of them to the infirmary, they insisted they had been roughhousing with one another in the Gryffindor common room, and that when Lupin had knocked the bottle of ink off the desk and into his eyes, that he'd lashed out blindly and caught Potter's nose. They then said I had collected them from the stairwell, and led the way upstairs."

"D'you tell 'em to lie?"

"I did not." Severus watches Lucius for a moment, taking in his neutral expression with undisguised suspicion.

"Did _you_ lie?" he asks. Lucius' lips shift, and he _smirks_.

"A good question, Severus," he murmurs, seemingly full of approval, and Severus isn't pleased, he _isn't_ , and he sure as Hell won't smile or something equally ridiculous, just because Lucius looks pleased with him. "I did not. When Pomfrey asked me what _I_ believed happened, I said I they had likely been fighting with another student or students, and did not wish to be held in detention on top of being the losing party. What I am curious to know, however, is why Potter and his gallant assistants have elected to take you up as their chosen target."

"We was sat in the same train compartment."

"Oh, all becomes clear," Lucius says, voice dripping with sarcasm. There's a momentary pause, and then Lucius says, a little impatiently, "Go on."

"And he didn't like me, that's all. Said I was gonna be a dark wizard, 'cause I wanted to be in Slytherin, and then they had a tantrum because I said Slytherin house does allow Muggleborns, and that they're rare, but not unheard of." And this is true – he knows it's true, because it says it in _Hogwarts: A History_ and it says it in other books besides, but Lucius curls his lip just slightly, looking something like disgusted.

"Hardly _wanted,_ though, are they?" Lucius asks. Severus feels an uncomfortable stab of uncertainty in his belly, as this was precisely what Potter and Lupin had said in the train compartment, but he elects to ignore it.

"And he said dark wizards are in Slytherin, and I said I'd rather be a dark wizard than die doing some stupid Gryffindor thing." Lucius looks at Severus for a long few moments, and Severus continues, "And then, they were making fun of me 'cause I got sick on the train, and then on the boats I was feeling really ill as well, but I was doing my best not to be, and they were making gagging noises as we were going across the lake, so me and Lily and the Zloty twins swung the boat back and forth 'til there was a swell, and when it hit their boat it knocked Pettigrew into the lake."

"You were sick on the train?" Lucius asks.

"No, just _felt_ sick," Severus says, trying to keep the bulk of the defensiveness out of his tone. "What about it?"

"Motion sickness?" Lucius asks.

"Yeah."

"Why didn't you take a potion for it?" Severus had been almost expecting a blow from Lucius, when the other boy had taken him aside like this, but this is almost worse. He doesn't like the way Lucius needles at him and insists on picking everything apart, and acting like Severus is something that needs a detective working on him, acting like there's some weird mismatches in his person or the things he says even when there aren't any. And he'd _asked_ for a potion, he had, but Mum'd said the ingredients were too expensive, and that it took too long, and that he was too old anyway, to be getting sick on trains and that, like a child, and that he needed to learn to swallow it.

"Din't have one," he says.

"Your mother is a potioneer, is she not?"

"Ingredients were too expensive," he mutters. Lucius' brow furrows.

"A basic anti-nausea potion is the work of twenty-five minutes, and requires nothing more exotic than kelp." Severus takes this in for a moment, and then he looks down at his knees instead of at Lucius. On some level, he supposes, he knows this – he doesn't know exactly how much things cost, because he's never had more than a few Muggle coins in his hand when running to the shop to get some drink or some fags for his dad, but he knows that _his_ beginner's potions set had had all the ingredients for an anti-emetic.

"I dunno what you want me to say." Lucius thins his lips, looking at Severus very seriously for a long few moments. Maybe he's gonna suggest Severus' mum doesn't care enough about him, as if it's her fault she never has any money, or maybe he's gonna ask how she treats him. Both of these questions, he dreads.

Lucius asks neither.

"Do you know why Potter and Black dislike you, Severus?"

"Because I'm poor," Severus says, bluntly. The word tastes like ashes in his mouth, the plosive sound popping past his lips and immediately withering on the air between them.

"Yes," Lucius agrees.

"Can't do anything about that, can I?" Severus asks, lowly.

"Black and Potter – and potentially Lupin and Pettigrew – have advantages you do not," Lucius murmurs, seeming quietly contemplative as he takes a momentary pause, and then he says, "but the same might be said of you. Moreover, you might make better improvements upon your abilities, now that you're here at Hogwarts. You might take on some duelling proficiency, before the year is out."

"Would you teach me?" The question is directed at Severus' knees more than at Lucius, and he feels the thickness of the silence between them, the uncertainty therein, _his_ uncertainty. Severus' mother has never so much as taught him as permitted him to be in the room whilst she'd worked on potions, lectured to the room at large in the irritable tone of somebody unused to being listened to, and Severus had read every book he could, taken in everything he could… And she loves him. She's told him that, many times, usually in the moments where Severus wants desperately to be left alone, and couldn't care less if anybody loves him or not. And Dad… Dad's taught him things too. Explained the offside rule, with the implication that he'd be worse off for not remembering it (despite the fact that his father had struggled to recall the particularities himself), or what order to have drinks in, that you not get too hungover.

Taught him to duck.

"I will _assist_ you, with your independent studies, assuming your marks are appropriately high in your classes." This frustrates him, for some reason, the ease with which Lucius says it, and the— The _propriety_ of it, like Severus doesn't have any choice in the matter.

"You're not my da," Severus mutters.

"Does your father give a whit as to what marks you earn in school? Would that Muggle brute even care if you lived or died?" Lucius asks, his voice clean and cutting through the air, and Severus feels his breath hitch in his throat. He feels a humiliated burn rise up in his cheeks again, and he crosses his arms tightly over his chest, leaning right back in his seat and giving Lucius a doleful look. "Mmm," Lucius hums, disapproving. "I am not your father, indeed."

"He'd care," Severus says. He isn't sure if he believes it – he'd care if Mum left, certainly, but an absence of Severus is a grey area. He'd not have somebody to run to the shops for him, Severus supposes, if he ran out of fags and didn't want to miss the match on the radio. Severus is more of an inconvenience than a matter of greater importance in the Snape household, and of this he has always been made grimly aware.

"If you run into problems with that Potter boy again, I do want you to be careful. The four of them are each good liars, I should expect, and they'll each corroborate what they say to one another. Do try to retain witnesses – prefects or staff, if possible, or your fellow Slytherins. Most of the staff won't think twice about ignoring what you say regardless." Severus digests this last statement, glancing up at Lucius' expression, which is as cool and neutral as the Queen's was in the commemorative china plate Mum had smashed earlier this year.

"'Cause I'm poor?" he asks, this time uncertain. He knows what it is, from the other boys – that's always been the case, and it was the case in Cokeworth too.

"It isn't just that," Lucius murmurs, his tone suddenly a lot more delicate, a lot less cruel.

"What is it, then? What'm I meant to do different?" Severus asks. "Because if I knew what to do different, I could just— _do it_. And it'd be fine." It sounds stupid as he says it: it sounds foolish, the idle mutterings of the child he's never really felt he is, and Lucius' expression softens as he looks at him, but Severus hates that. He hates how it softens, because people don't look at you with soft expressions when they have answers for you, when they can actually fix it. They do it when they can't do nothing, and have no advice at all.

"Differently," Lucius corrects, almost absently, and Severus sighs. "Go sit with the other First Years, Severus, or take yourself off to bed." With no small amount of reluctance, Severus drags himself off the couch, and plods out into the main Common Room, sitting silently beside some Third Years to watch them play a complicated board game that one of them – Alice Kissinger – occasionally starts trying to explain. She is winning by a longshot, but Severus isn't certain she understands the rules herself.

Lucius doesn't follow him. He stays in the little lounge, and when Conrad Applegate (Kissinger supplies his name when she sees Severus looking at him) steps inside, he closes the door shut behind him.

Severus' stomach is a nest of snakes, and he curls up more tightly on the sofa, watching the Third Years play.


	5. One Of Those Nights

Lucius watches as Conrad leans back on his heels, drawing a delicate finger over the underside of one of his plump lips, and – noting, it seems, that Lucius is still gazing upon him – licks the pearl of liquid that clings there, sucking most lasciviously on his fingers. He looks right up at Lucius, utterly without shame, and Lucius shifts his robes down, reaching out and carding his fingers hard through the other man's hair and gripping it tightly, pulling him closer.

Conrad melts into his mouth when Lucius kisses him, kisses him back so smoothly, with such practice, and Lucius sighs quietly when he draws away.

"What?" Conrad asks, arching one eyebrow. "You can't possibly want to go again."

"No," Lucius murmurs, letting his fingers drift down to play with the soft skin of Conrad's neck. "Merely tired, that's all. I'm sleeping ill as of late."

"Is this your oh-so-delicate way of asking that I warm your bed?" Conrad asks, his voice dripping with amusement, his lips curved into a rather sharp smile. "I know Crowley is inattentive, Lucius, but I think he'd notice _that_." Lucius laughs, tugging playfully at the back of Conrad's hair: in all honesty, he isn't so convinced, as he is sure Crowley _wouldn't_ notice if Lucius brought two men into his bed, and a few women to boot, but that's hardly the issue. He wouldn't allow another boy to get caught in flagrante with him, and certainly not permit the young idiot to share his _bed_ – even Conrad, who is ever cool, collected, and casual, is only jesting.

"My bed is cool and empty, as I prefer it," Lucius replies, and Conrad watches him for a moment or two, his hands sliding in easy, unthinking circles on Lucius' thighs.

"You were late to dinner," Conrad says.

"I took two Gryffindor boys up to the infirmary."

"Ah," Conrad says, and then adds, astutely, "Young Snape's work?"

"He's a vicious little thing. Like a polecat," Lucius says, offering the other seventh year his hand and helping him up. Evidently feeling bold, Conrad perches himself upon Lucius' knee, and Lucius glances to the lounge door, but the door is locked with one of Lucius' personal wards, and none of the other students could supersede the magic without a good deal of time and warning.

"I believe that," Conrad murmurs. "He has a jittery air to him, doesn't he? Reminds me of my aunt's crup. Always flinching, always ready for a fight. You've taken an interest in the boy?"

"I think there's a great deal of potential there," Lucius murmurs, his fingers idly playing over Conrad's lower back, stroking up and down his spine through the fabric of his robe, and Conrad leans back into the touch. Homosexual relations are hardly celebrated by the wider society, but it is known that they _go on_ , and so long as no one goes mad and acts as if they might take a man for a wife, they can be comfortably ignored. "He's a natural potioneer, and that aside, he seems to only read a page and understand a book's entire contents. A shame for such an intellect to be buried under so many bristles."

"Oh, I have _no doubt_ , Lucius, that you will mould the boy in your image," Conrad says, only slightly sardonically, and then he leans in, catching Lucius' lips under his own before he draws away again, making his way toward the door, his hips swaying. Lucius watches him as he goes, taking in the curve of his arse when the robe catches him the right way.

Then, he stands up, following him out into the Common Room. The numbers have gone down heavily, and Lucius takes a moment to glance around at those still awake. Most have filtered off to bed, and in one armchair, he sees the familiar, aristocratic form of the inhumanly pale Lindon Sartorius, making careful notes on a History of Magic book that Lucius is fairly certain is not even remotely close to their syllabus.

"When did _you_ get in?" Lucius asks.

"About five minutes ago," Lindon answers casually, idly turning a page.

"You're lucky I don't give you a detention," Lucius says, shoving his knuckles against the side of Lindon's dark hair, and Lindon laughs.

"I'd happily serve a detention with you, darling," Lindon replies, and Lucius clucks his tongue in disapproval, but before he can walk away, Lindon touches his hip. "Your Snape's fallen asleep on the couch on the far wall. I turned the lamp off and threw a blanket over him. Alice Kissinger wouldn't let me wake him, called him a _poor mite_."

"More of a louse than a mite," Lucius says musingly, and Lindon laughs as Lucius takes a few steps forward, into the darkened corner of the Common Room. Severus is under a green fleece blanket from one of the shelves in the corner (the Common Room and dormitories each get chilly at times, and there are a great many blankets kept on hand within easy reach). In his sleep, the boy's face slackens slightly, more relaxed, but Lucius is hardly going to leave the boy out here asleep.

"Going to carry him?" Conrad asks from behind him, and Lucius chuckles.

"No, I'll reserve that for the boy's casualties," Lucius replies, and he crouches down, delicately patting the side of Severus' cheek, which is sallow and rough to the touch. "Severus? Severus, wake up." The boy comes awake with a sudden flinch, one surprisingly strong hand whipping out and grasping at Lucius' wrist: Severus' eyes are wide, panicky, and Lucius says, "It's alright, child, it's just me. Time to go to bed."

Severus' hand opens in one abrupt movement, and Severus looks with visible uncertainty at the crescent marks his dirty fingernails (hadn't Lucius told him to clean those?) have left on the skin. Then, with confusion, he glances at the blanket.

"Din't have that before," he mutters sleepily. "Din't mean to fall asleep."

"Well, take it to bed with you, you'll catch your death," Lucius says, pushing the blanket into his arms, and Severus takes it, blinking a few times before stumbling across the room and down the corridor, barely awake. Lucius turns over his wrist, looking at the four sharp marks dug into the flesh, and Conrad leans over, murmuring a healing spell Lucius is vaguely aware is usually for skin imperfections, and he watches the scores smooth out and disappear. "My thanks," Lucius murmurs.

"You'll be a _terrific_ mother," Conrad says mildly, and Lucius shoves him in the hip, watching him fall to the stone floor with a thump and a grunt of, "Or not."

"Good _night_ , Conrad," Lucius says darkly, and Conrad laughs as he draws himself up from the floor, giving Lucius an easy salute as he steps back across the Common Room, and Lucius draws himself up, adjusting his sleeves and smoothing out the skirt of his robe. He walks out into the dormitory corridor, and he notes the room marked **AVERY & SNAPE** is slightly ajar, so he takes a step forward, delicately pushing it open: the two boys are lit by the flicker of a single candle on Avery's bedside table.

Avery is sleeping half out of his covers, one foot tossed from beneath his quilt to keep himself cool; Severus' bed is an utter _mess_ , the boy a pale dot in the midst of his green sheets. The fleece blanket is wrapped haphazardly around his neck and chest; the top sheet is knotted around one ankle, and his quilt is on the floor beside his bed.

Sighing, Lucius takes a step forward, picking up the thick duvet, and he sweeps it forward, letting it settle loosely over the idiot child's body, which is at an _exceedingly_ unnatural angle on the bed, his limbs curled like those of a dead spider. Severus doesn't even stir. All of the fight, it seems, has tired him out.

Blowing out the candle at Avery's bedside, Lucius goes to the door, closing it behind him with a quiet click.

"Prefect Malfoy?"

Lucius takes in the round-shouldered silhouette of Edna Foppish, at the end of the corridor. Dressed in some flannel pyjamas, her dressing gown over top, she still shivers slightly in the draught, and when Lucius steps forward, he sees the red, puffy skin around her eyes, hears her sniffle softly.

"Can't sleep, Edna?" Lucius asks quietly.

"Mmm mmm," the girl hums, shaking her head. "But Prefect Crowley said it's lights out for First Years at nine, and it's nearly eleven now. And I know I could just shut my curtains and have a candle, but I tried reading, and that doesn't help."

"What say you we sit down in the Common Room for a little while?" Lucius asks, his tone low, and gentle.

"Oh," Foppish mumbles. "But Prefect Crowley—"

"Well, I outrank Prefect Crowley, child, and besides that, I could take her in a duel."

Weakly, Foppish smiles, and Lucius puts out his hand, leading the girl into the Common Room. It is, he is aware from the get-go, that it will be _one of those nights_ , and he is quite correct: Foppish sobs for nearly twenty minutes, although whether the main crux of the issue is homesickness or the death of her favourite rabbit, Lucius couldn't say. By the time the girl has poured out her soul and gone to bed again, it is ten minutes before midnight, and as the Fourth Years dutifully troop from their dormitories for their Astronomy lesson, there's a scream from one of the boy's dormitories.

Second Year: Donal O'Toole's night terrors again, although he only takes the better part of twenty minutes to stop hyperventilating, and once that part of the process is over, he's usually out like a light again. Lucius makes a note in his diary to talk to Professor Slughorn about the boy's prescription at that week's Head of House meeting.

Tomorrow, already, there is a prefects' meeting at eight o'clock sharp, but now, three weeks into term, there will only be minor issues or complaints from the other prefects, as well as any switching over patrol shifts in the evenings…

Lucius pauses in the middle of the Fourth Year boys' corridor, inhaling. The Seventh Year dormitories are oh-so-close, and he can almost feel the soft mattress beneath him, but—

"For Merlin's _sake_ ," Lucius mutters. He can't just _smell_ it: fine, blue smoke is filtering out from beneath the door marked **SPODE & HEATHERFAX**, and he shoves it open, watching as Spode, Heatherfax, Bulstrode, and Riesling all jump a mile. "Put that out, now!" Lucius thunders, and Spode coughs and splutters as Heatherfax flicks an extinguishing charm at the blue flame beneath the jar, quickly capping it. "Hand it over."

"Lucius, come on, this stuff is three Galleons an ounce!" Heatherfax complains, but Lucius snatches the jar away from him.

"Bulstrode, Riesling, _out_." Both boys sprint out of the room, very unsteadily and visibly intoxicated, and Lucius snaps after them, "Five points from Slytherin, apiece! Which one of you bought this?" Spode and Heatherfax glance at one another, Heatherfax with a steady gaze, Spode with watery eyes and a very red face.

"We… _found_ it," Heatherfax says, finally. "Together."

"Then you can both serve detention together," Lucius says cleanly. "Ten points from Slytherin apiece."

" _Lucius_ , come on, the detention's enough!" Heatherfax complains.

"Yeah," Spode manages to say, with a very hoarse voice.

"You can smell the stench of this from up the corridor, I hope you realize," Lucius says, setting the jar of inhalant down on the dresser behind him, and then he steps forward, grabbing them both by their robe fronts and pulling them close to him. Spode releases a low noise not dissimilar to " _wurble_ "; Heatherfax heaves in a gasp, although he sways slightly. "In future, you will _not_ smoke this nonsense in the Slytherin dormitories, and if you smoke it elsewhere on campus, what will you do?"

"Not get caught?" Spode asks, coughing: the smell is sickening.

"You _moron_ ," Lucius whispers. "You will do something for the _smell_."

"And we'll stopper the door," Heatherfax agrees, and Lucius releases them both, taking up the jar and all but slamming the door behind him. It isn't the use of recreational potions that truly irritates him – although this stuff, which is Andes Pariah Weed (named for its associated stench), and has enough "medicinal" qualities to turn four Fourth Year brains to slurry – but the fact that when he turns it into Slughorn tomorrow morning, the man will nod, say, _Oh, yes, Prefect Malfoy, how dreadful_ , wait for Lucius to leave, and then smoke the stuff himself. Lucius would only leave them _to_ it, if there were not a likely chance of one of the idiots overdosing and having to be sent off to St Mungo's, as had happened with a Sixth Year called LaRoux the year previous.

It's one thing to cause oneself serious injury or death out on the grounds or in an empty classroom, but here, in the dormitories? It's _unseemly_ , and it upsets the younger students.

"School full of blithering idiots," he mutters to himself as he comes back out into the Common Room, and sees Lindon Sartorius squinting uncertainly down at a stuffed owl that has ripped at its seams. When Lucius enters the room, he looks at Lucius hopelessly, and Lucius looks from Sartorius to Kipling Rutherford (or is it Rutherford Kipling?), another First Year, who is sobbing like a child half his age.

Somewhere down the girls' corridor, he hears the distant shatter of glass, followed by a scream.

Yes, he thinks.

One of _those_ nights.

 **ϟ** **~ THE INKBLOT ~** **ϟ**

When Severus wakes in the morning, nobody else is up yet. It is only half past five, and when he plods into the Common Room, the only figure up is Lucius, who is sitting alone on a long sofa, a bottle of a steaming, golden potion Severus doesn't recognize on the table in front of him, a glass of the stuff held against the side of his temple.

"Are you always awake this early?" he asks, slightly irritably.

"No," Severus says. "Fell asleep only at eight, though, din't I? D'you carry me to bed?"

"What? No, you walked there of your own accord. You don't remember?" The night is very hazy, and Severus takes a moment to think, squinting to himself as he hides a yawn behind his mouth. He remembers watching the Third Years play their game, and he distantly remembers somebody putting a blanket over him on the sofa, and then… He was in his bed, definitely.

"No," he answers, finally. "What potion's that?"

"Ogden's finest," Lucius answers. Ogden? Severus takes up the bottle, and he sniffs delicately at the steam rising from its open neck. Lucius watches him, arching an eyebrow.

"Smells like paint turps," Severus says.

"It's whiskey, Severus. Ogden's firewhiskey."

"S'a bit early for drinking, in't it?" Severus asks, although in truth, he's not sure when the proper drinking hours actually are, since he's never seen anybody actually hold themselves to them.

"I haven't slept," Lucius replies. "It's for my headache."

"Why don't you brew a headache potion?"

"Because I already have a headache, and don't wish to spend twenty minutes adding fumes to the fire before I can soothe it."

"Oh," Severus says. He looks at Lucius, who, despite having had no sleep, barely shows any sign – his eyes are perhaps a little darker than usual, but that's all. "How come you didn't sleep?"

"I was putting out fires all night."

"What?"

"Proverbially."

"Oh."

"Yes."

"What happened?"

"In order?" Lucius asks, and Severus shrugs. "At twenty-five minutes past eleven, I put you to bed, and five minutes later I went into yours and Avery's room to put out your candle; another First Year then had me sit down with her for half an hour, that she might soothe her homesickness; a Second Year woke screaming from night terrors and had to be put back to bed; I confiscated some recreational potions from a crew of Fourth Years, then performed a few spells to remove the residual odour from the corridor; I had to perform emergency medicine upon a stuffed owl that had ripped at its seams – before you ask, yes, taxidermised, not a soft toy – but not before fielding the argument between two Fifth Year girls as to who owed whom money for new perfume; a Sixth Year cracked her head open whilst trying to creep out to meet her Hufflepuff lover, meaning that I had to stem the bleeding whilst waiting for a House Elf to take him to Madam Pomfrey." Lucius pauses to take a breath, and a sip of his firewhiskey. "While I was washing the blood off my hands, another Sixth Year came to me with the unenviable complaint that his dorm-partner was having sex too loudly in the next bed with a Seventh Year, and asked me desperately to teach him a better muffling charm than the one that he knew; one of the NEWT alchemists, not content with turning lead into gold, turned his ceiling into not-ceiling and nearly drowned in lakewater before managing to turn it back, and his dormitory partner has declared intentions to murder him before the week is out; and last, but not at all least, _my_ dormitory partner, Aubrey Crowley, set his robe on fire in an attempt to dry it after spilling what I can only assume was some sort of fuel made of the most rancid oils imaginable, and has burned both his bed and a good deal of our carpet to a cinder." He takes a moment, squinting, and then he adds, "Oh, yes, and Greta Cinderford's cat, Robespierre, died in the night, so if you wish to clear your schedule, the funeral is at eleven."

Severus stands very still, taking all of this in. He isn't sure how he is supposed to respond – when his mother rants like this, he is supposed to agree with everything she says, and ideally get out of her way, but Lucius does not sound especially irritable, or like he might start screaming. He lists everything very clearly and calmly – albeit with some evident fatigue – and then knocks back his glass of whiskey in one, before quickly hiding his bottle under the table.

The next second, the Quidditch Team troops through: they each salute Lucius as they go, and one of them – a female chaser whose chest bounces visibly as she walks – asks flirtatiously who had the pleasure of keeping him up all night. Apparently, this is a good thing to have said, because Lucius smiles.

"This happen often?" Severus asks, finally.

"Not _often_ ," Lucius says. "Ordinarily, there are only one or two extreme incidents per week, on top of the homesick First Years, but they eke out after the first term is through, as a rule."

"Are you going to go to Greta Cinderford's cat's funeral?" Severus asks: Lucius sighs.

"Yes," he says, long-sufferingly. "I expect so."

"That's stupid," Severus says.

"Well, she's only twelve," Lucius mutters. "It's a very stupid age."

"Why do _you_ have to go?"

"Because nobody else will," Lucius says. "And because I don't want Filch to say anything dreadful to her while he buries the thing. Not without a witness, anyway." Neither of these seem to be adequate reasons to Severus' mind – why _should_ anybody else go to a funeral for a dead cat, and besides, who cares if Filch says something nasty to a stupid little bint who wants a funeral for a cat anyway?

"I'd hate being a prefect," Severus says.

Laughing, Lucius stoppers his bottle of firewhiskey. "Something tells me prefecture isn't on your horizon, Severus," Lucius replies, and Severus follows him as he moves through the various corridors. Severus looks at the different names on each of the doors – in the Slytherin dormitories, barring the Common Room, which is supported by several stone columns, the majority of the rooms are very small, serving two students at a time. This is so that too much strain isn't put on any of the ceilings: all the magic in the world, Armand Richelieu had said ruefully, can't help you if there's a nick in the ward structure and the lake wants to break through. Each door has a brass plate neatly embossed with the names of the students within, and when they reach the one at the end of the Seventh Year boys' corridor, Severus reads **CROWLEY & MALFOY**.

Inside, a very gingery-blond boy is sitting on a smoking bed, and he is delicately holding a smoking cigar. His eyebrows are very burnt, and some of the smoke, Severus thinks, is coming from his smouldered hair instead of the bed or the cigar.

"This had better be fixed when I come to bed."

"When are you planning on coming to bed?" Crowley asks, staring into the middle distance as if he might find the meaning of life in the ashy particles floating on the air.

"At four o'clock, where I shall lay, undisturbed, until the next morning."

"I'll do my best," Crowley says. "You would be young Snape, hm?"

"Yes," Severus says.

"You're very pale. Get enough sun?"

"I s'pose. It's out every day," Severus says. This seems to perplex Crowley, who peers at Severus for a long few seconds.

"Is it indeed?" he asks, and then he falls back on his pillow, taking a long puff of his cigar. "Fascinating." Severus frowns, watching as Lucius hides his firewhiskey in a secreted compartment at the back of his wardrobe. Lucius' half of the room is entirely unburnt, and Severus takes in the neatly organised books on the shelf, the framed photograph of a laughing old woman on his bedside table, a bottle of cologne…

"What's wrong with him?" Severus asks as they step back out into the corridor, and Lucius groans quietly.

"His mother was Potions Master at St Mungo's, kept testing potions for months before she realized she was pregnant. He's not quite with us, on this plane of reality, but he'll make an astonishing Unspeakable."

"What's that?"

"Somebody who works in the Department of Mysteries."

"… What's _that_?" Severus asks.

"It's a department at the Ministry of Magic that specializes in fringe magical arts – risky potions, reality-bending, time magic, prophecy, et cetera," Lucius says, waving a vague hand. "No one really knows the specifics, truth be told. We know they do experimental magic, but that's all. The Unspeakables wear robes that hide their faces and their voices with enchanted robes."

"Like the Death Eaters?" Severus asks, and Lucius pauses for a moment, his lips pursed.

"Yes," he says.

"Who was that old woman on your beside table?"

"Full of questions this morning, aren't you?"

"Nobody else is awake."

"Aubrey's awake."

"Aubrey was smoking. Not the cigar, I mean. _He_ was smoking."

"Yes," Lucius murmurs, sighing. "I noticed that as well." Glancing back at Severus, he says, "Go and get your book bag, then. I was going to wait until seven to visit Slughorn's office, but we'll walk up to the staff room instead." Severus feels a sudden surge of anger.

"Why?" he demands. "What've I done?"

"Not _you_ , Severus," Lucius says tiredly. "It's prefect's business."

"Why've I gotta come?"

"Because after we visit the staff room, we can go to the kitchens, and you can have something to eat. Aren't you hungry?" Severus considers this question for a moment. His stomach does feel somewhat empty, although it is not yet at the point of growling, and he _would_ like to eat something. The idea of waiting an hour and a half until seven, when they can leave the Common Room, or until seven thirty, when breakfast begins, isn't a pleasant one.

"I'll get by bag," Severus says, and Lucius inclines his head.

 **ϟ** **~ THE INKBLOT ~** **ϟ**

Severus walks very quickly and quietly behind Lucius as he moves, and Lucius muses on the boy's obedience, which is thus far _untested_ , but— Beyond his violence in the moment, will he be much of a rulebreaker? Lucius isn't yet sure. The boy certainly has an intelligent head on his shoulders, and Lucius suspects he won't be _caught_ , in the event that he does—

"You slept through the night?" The question hovers in the air for a few moments, and Lucius

"Mmm," Severus hums.

"Good," Lucius says.

"D'you want kids?" Severus asks, and Lucius glances back at him. Severus' expression is difficult to take apart: the boy's brow is furrowed, his lip twisted, but it's genuinely difficult to to determine what exactly it is he's thinking. The boy is the very definition of inscrutable.

"Why do you ask?"

"Dunno."

" _Severus_."

"I don't know, Lucius." Lucius feels his lip twitch in amusement, and he listens as Severus asks, "Just seems like… mad. That you'd be up all night, doing all that, and then you got that prefects' meeting, and your classes, and Robespierre's funeral."

"How did you know about the prefects' meeting?"

"Crowley said. Prefect Crowley."

"Ah," Lucius murmurs. He considers the question for a moment – it isn't really a question _asked_ in Pureblood society, as the answer is simple, obvious. It isn't a matter of wanting children, after all: to have children is, simply enough, one's duty. "Yes, of course. Probably three or four, depending on my wife's preferences." Of course he does. Of course he does. Much as it grates on him, at times, the nights like these, he loves children, loves spending time with them, loves teaching them… And _babies!_ Merlin, Lucius has heard some of his fellows talk about how cold infants leave them, how little they care for them, but oh, Lucius adores them, is never happier than when he has a young baby in his arms.

"Oh," Severus says.

"Might I make a recommendation, Severus?" Lucius asks as they come before the door marked **STAFF ROOM** in brass letters.

"Mmm?"

"If your instinct is to make some _noise_ , whether it be "Oh," or "Mmm," or something similar, say naught at all, until you are ready to make use of your words."

"Twat," Severus says.

"Yes, like that," Lucius says, in a tone of exaggerated praise, and he raps his knuckles against the door. After a few minutes, it opens wide, and Lucius offers Professor McGonagall a polite smile as he glances past her, into the staff room as a whole. Dumbledore leans back in a chair, making mild conversation with Professor Flitwick, and he can see Hooch and Pomfrey playing a game of chess. "Good morning."

"You're up very early, Mr Malfoy, Mr Snape," McGonagall says, glancing down at Severus, who takes a slight step behind Lucius, and Lucius has to take a moment to keep himself from laughing. "What are you doing out of bed?"

"I haven't slept," Lucius says.

"Ah," McGonagall says, with the easy wisdom of any ex-Head Girl. "One of those nights."

"Indeed," Lucius murmurs.

"You slept, I hope, Mr Snape?"

"Yes, Professor," Severus says dutifully.

"And what brings you here at so early an hour?" McGonagall asks, stepping back and gesturing for Lucius to step inside. Severus steps after him, but Lucius can feel the way he lingers _behind_ him, as if Lucius might offer some sort of human shield between Severus and the staff that teach him.

"Three primary concerns. Firstly, to ask after the health of Ms Kettlesmith, who was hospitalised at some time past three."

"Oh, she's fine," Pomfrey says. "The Hufflepuff boy she was going to meet, Mr Yoke, broke his ankle on the stairs as he crept back to his own quarters."

"They sound like soulmates," Lucius says dryly. "Secondly, to say that one of the alchemists Vanished part of his ceiling last night, and flooded his dormitory before managing to stem the flow."

"Again?" Flitwick asks. Lucius decides to ignore this.

"I think it ought be alright, but someone may wish to test the warding structure and ensure he's done no permanent damage."

"I will do so this afternoon, Mr Malfoy," Dumbledore says pleasantly. "And your third concern?" Lucius reaches into his pocket, and he removes the jar of Andes Pariah Weed, holding it out to McGonagall, whose expression abruptly changes from polite interest to horrified disgust.

"Oh, which one of them was this?"

"Spode and Heatherfax shared the blame. I told them I'd organise a detention for them; Bulstrode and Riesling I merely deducted points from."

"Which Bulstrode?" McGonagall asks.

"Durand."

"I'll organise the detentions," McGonagall mutters, shaking her head. "When is your meeting today?"

"Eight o'clock," Lucius says. "Shall I put you on the agenda?"

"No, no, just make a note that prefects should be on the lookout for any more of this," McGonagall murmurs. "Why didn't you take this to Slughorn?"

"Oh, why bother?" Flitwick's voice squeaks from further inside the room. "He'd only smoke it himself anyway."

Hooch lets out a loud bark of laughter, slapping the table, as Pomfrey and McGonagall each say, "Filius!" in tones of scandal and irritation respectively.

"Oh, what does it matter?" Hooch asks, laughing openly. "It's only Malfoy, and he's a prefect."

"And the boy, Rolanda?" prompts Dumbledore, sagely.

"What boy?" Hooch says. With a neat and – in his opinion – artful step, Lucius moves to the left, and reveals Severus, who is visibly trying not to laugh, and doing a very good job, although his lips are white from pursing them. "Oh," Hooch says, her grey brow furrowing slightly. "Good morning, Snape."

"Good morning, Madam Hooch," Severus says, in an admirably even voice. His ears have turned slightly pink.

"Good on a broom, that one," Hooch says approvingly to Flitwick and Pomfrey, and Lucius pats Severus' shoulder when he smiles.

"I thought I might as well bring it up here now, as I'm already up and awake," Lucius says mildly. "Professor Slughorn will not rise until at least a quarter to eight."

" _Hush_ , Filius," Pomfrey says, when Flitwick opens his mouth to respond. Severus chokes out a little noise of not-quite-laughter, and Lucius squeezes the boy's shoulder: he purses his lips again.

"We'll leave you to it," Lucius says mildly, and he reaches back for the door. "My apologies for disturbing your morning's peace from the student body."

"Quite alright, Mr Malfoy," Flitwick squeaks wryly. "It never lasts."

When Lucius closes the door behind them, Severus cracks into laughter, hiding his snickers against his elbow, and Lucius watches him as he works out the laughter, heaving in gasps in between. When the boy is finished, Lucius smoothly begins to walk again, leading them down toward the kitchens. Severus rushes ahead, apparently energised where Lucius is exhausted, but he skitters to a rapid stop when he nearly runs into Filch.

"What are you doing out of bed?" Filch demands.

"We're going to the kitchens, Mr Filch," Lucius says smoothly, and Filch glances up, surprised. "Why, is there something you require of us?" Filch takes a moment or two, scowling, crossing his skinny arms over his chest.

"Nah," he mutters.

"One thing," Lucius says, easing the steel from his tone as he comes in line with Severus, and then he says, "I confiscated some Andes Pariah Weed from some fourth years last night, and I'll be advising the prefects to keep an eye out for it. I thought you ought to know."

"Terrible stuff," Filch mutters. "Ugly smell."

"Yes, Mr Filch," Lucius agrees. Filch eyeballs Severus, taking him in, and Severus does not flinch away from it, merely standing very straight, his posture almost perfect.

"Good morning, Mr Filch," Severus says, finally.

"I'll give you a hiding if I catch you out of bed outside of curfew without someone escorting you, Snape."

"Yes, Mr Filch."

"You'll feel it for weeks!"

"Yes, Mr Filch."

"And you keep them boots clean!"

"Of course, Mr Filch. Can I stroke your cat?" This rather seems to throw Filch for a loop, and he glances down at the esteemed figure of Mrs Norris, who is weaving between Filch's legs in a somewhat impatient fashion, as if there are better places they need to be, and it is her job to remind him of this.

"She don't like to be touched," Filch says. "'Cept by me."

"O—" Severus stops. "Yes, Mr Filch," he says, and Lucius feels his lips shift into the slightest of smiles, but then— Oh. Yes.

"Oh, that reminds me," Lucius says. "Greta Cinderford's cat died last night, Mr Filch. She woke with him dead on her pillow, and I said we could bury him at eleven this morning."

"Robespierre?" Filch asks. Merlin, does the man know the name of every cat in the castle? There must be _dozens_ of them, and yet… Well, it certainly wouldn't surprise him. Filch is utterly mad, after all.

"I believe that was the animal's name, yes."

"Mmm," Filch grunts, and he walks off down the corridor, Mrs Norris padding after him down the hall.

"Come," Lucius murmurs, tapping the back of Severus' shoulder. "Let's get something to eat."


	6. Flying High

"Tickle the pear," Lucius says behind him, and Severus glances back at him, uncertain. The portrait is painted with oils, the colours luscious and bright in the dim light of the morning that filters in from the glass windows, and he feels himself frown. He can see the pear, yes, at one side of the painting, but—

"Tickle it?" Severus repeats.

"Yes," Lucius says. "Haven't you been tickled before?"

This is the sort of question that is supposed to be met with the obvious answer of "yes," but he's pretty sure he hasn't been, even by Lily. He knows what it looks like, to be tickled – he's seen Lily playing with Petunia in one of Tuney's rare good moods, has seen Lily squeal with laughter when Petunia tickles her (and Petunia's furious screeches and yells If Lily tries it back). He's been _hugged_. Once or twice, his mother has patted his head, and now and then, his father has patted him on the back, or squeezed the back of his neck.

Something changes in Lucius' expression, a kind of dawning comprehension, and he takes a slow step forward. Automatically, Severus steps back, flinching away slightly, drawing too quickly the natural conclusion between an obvious question unanswered and Lucius stepping toward him, but he doesn't grab for him. Instead, Lucius' finger moves forward, and Severus looks at the way he crooks it slightly, like you do on a cat's chin.

Before Severus' eyes, the pear transforms, darkening to a shining gold and releasing – with a quiet _pop_ – a handle. Severus feels himself smile.

"This is the kitchens," Lucius says, and he turns the handle, stepping inside.

Severus is arrested by the very sight of it all. The kitchens, a little larger than the Great Hall itself, are high-ceilinged and gigantic, with stoves and ovens all about the edges of the room, as well as counters upon wish he can see plumes of flour or flame, see running back and forth ugly little leathery monsters dressed in tea towels. On four great replicas of the Hogwarts tables, he can see the beginnings of breakfast beginning to come together, the jugs of juice and water already set out on the table, as well as the pre-prepared cold dishes.

"Prefect Malfoy, sir!" cries out one of the leathery things, and Severus peers down at its gigantic, watery eyes and its drooping ears.

"We will be eating breakfast here, just the two of us," Lucius says. "Coffee for me, and just water for the boy. I just want a portion of scrambled eggs, some toast with butter, and some kippers, if you please. Severus?"

"Uh," Severus says. He isn't sure. He usually picks at a few different things at breakfast, isn't sure. "I don't—"

"Get him a selection, would you?"

"Yes, sir!" the leathery thing says brightly, and it rushes off between the tables.

When Lucius moves in the other direction, leading Severus to sit down at a small table with only a few chairs around it beside the fire, Severus follows him, and he sinks to sit down. Despite himself, he cannot stop looking at the weird little things as they rush about – he hadn't seen mention of them in any of the books he's read so far, even in _Hogwarts: A History_ , nor in _Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them_.

"Lucius," Severus says. "What— What are they?"

Lucius glances at him, one silver eyebrow arching in surprise, and then he glances dispassionately at the ugly things as they rush back and forth, calling to one another in their high, shrill voices. "House Elves," he says, finally. "They are a servile race, seek only to please their masters. I don't care for them, personally."

"Why?" Severus asks.

"I don't _trust_ them," Lucius murmurs, his lip curling slightly. "I really don't believe they're as genuinely desperate to serve as most of them claim, and their magic is disturbingly powerful for creatures with such little capacity for thought and consideration. I don't think we should have anything to do with them, personally, but it would be more dangerous to free them all. Most House Elves, without a master, will just pine themselves to death, but a handful will turn on wizards and witches, and with the power at their disposal, they can easily lay waste to someone." Lucius wrinkles his nose slightly, but he inclines his head when a different House Elf to before bustles forward and sets down coffee and water. "An ugly race, one we ought have no dealings with."

"How do people get them?" Severus asks.

"They're handed down. Malfoy Manor has five or six, all the same family. I am waiting eagerly for the line to die off, but they simply keep _breeding_." Severus watches the disgusted curl of Lucius' lip, as if a species breeding without his permission is just about the worst thing it can do, and he looks down at his own fingernails.

He had tried washing them. He had done it like you wash your hands, but that hadn't done much, because it hadn't got right under the nailbed, and then he had tried it with the bar soap, but that hadn't done much either – the soap had just caked underneath his fingernails and felt very sticky and uncomfortable, and had just pushed the black dirt further in besides.

"Will people really hate me?" Severus asks. "If they think I'm dirty?"

"They will not think you dirty," Lucius says in a very quiet, mild tone, "so long as you are clean." He doesn't answer the question, maybe because the answer is so obvious.

"Don't know how to make myself up like you posh lads do. And besides, it's not just… Being _clean_ , is it?" Just asking the question leaves a sticky, sickly taste in Severus' mouth.

"What do you mean?" Lucius asks, in the tone of one who knows exactly what you mean, and is desperately doing his best not to let onto that fact.

"'Cause of my nose," Severus says. "And my skin. And my hair. And 'cause I'm too skinny, and too short, and my eyes're black, and—"

"These things will even out as you grow older," Lucius cuts in, pausing to take a slow sip of his coffee. "They will become less extreme as you grow into your features, I am quite sure. But… You are right. You will likely never be considered _handsome_ , and that will always affect the way people view them. Polite manners and cleanliness, however, will hardly harm your standing in most circles."

Severus takes a moment to consider this. Mum and Dad, neither of them, seem to care that much about being _clean_ , not like Lucius and all the other students are. Takes time to wash yourself all up nice and clean, unless they're going to church, that Sunday, and it takes ages to heat up the water so that it isn't just freezing cold, and even if they just have the water cold, that takes a long while to run and all. And all that soap and shampoo and that is _expensive_ , and all them bottles and that get in the way, and Severus had watched his father throw out half of Mum's things one day when he was a lot younger…

"What about being a Halfblood?" Severus asks.

"Why, what has anyone said to you about being a Halfblood?" Lucius asks mildly, looking at Severus with an abrupt sternness on his face.

"No one's said nothing."

"No one has said _anything_ ," Lucius corrects. Severus rolls his eyes. "And," Lucius continues slowly, looking as if he's very carefully measuring out his words, "it is not the end of the world for one to be a Halfblood. One is technically a Pureblood if one's grandparents were each wizards or witches, if not Pureblood themselves. There is a place for Halfbloods in society."

"But not Muggleborns," Severus says, not bothering to keep the challenge out of his voice, and Lucius gives him a very slow, heavy-lidded stare over the rim of his coffee mug. Despite himself, Severus feels himself twitch, and he looks down at the table so he doesn't have to meet Lucius' icy gaze.

"Muggleborns would be… tolerable," Lucius murmurs. "Were they to cut off ties with the scum that bore them. Were they removed from their parents at birth or upon the first instance of accidental magic, and taken into wizarding families – kept to their own lines, of course, lest they dilute the pure bloodlines – that would be tolerable. As it stands, however, they open the wizarding world to the threat of Muggledom as a whole."

"What threat?" Severus asks. "We got magic, they don't."

"Ah, of _course_ ," Lucius says snidely. "Of course, your magic did wonders to protect you from your father, didn't it, Severus Snape?" The question snaps forward like a blow, just like it was meant to.

"Don't talk about my father." He feels like spitting, the burning anger suddenly coming to life inside him like a crackling fire.

"Why shouldn't I? It is you that feels the need to tacitly defend his baser species." The worst part isn't the words Lucius says, but the way he says them, in a kind of slick and oily way that digs right underneath Severus' skin and makes him feel like ripping out his hair, makes him want to lash out.

"Shut up," he hisses.

"Do watch yourself, child," Lucius says, his voice low and dangerous, his gaze fixed, and making a shiver run down Severus' spine. "I am kind to you out of choice, not out of obligation."

Severus' hand whips for his glass, moving to throw it, but Lucius' hand is lightning fast, and Severus lets out a sharp noise of pain as Lucius' hand – which is broad and heavy, despite his delicate grace – tightens hard about his wrist and bends his hand backward just slightly. He lets out a bitten back cry, knowing making a fuss is a bad idea in a situation like this, and he winces away slightly, expecting the slap.

"I will not now," Lucius begins as he loosens his hold on Severus' wrist, taking the glass of water from him and setting it neatly down upon the surface of the table, not a drop spilled, "nor will I ever strike you, Severus. But nor will I entertain these obscene displays of temper, and the physical violence that seem to accompany them. If you wish to take issue with me, you might duel me, like a civilized man."

Severus strokes his thumb over his wrist and his hand where Lucius had gripped at both, but he hadn't actually done it all that hard, and there won't even be any bruising, let alone anything snapped or broken.

"Don't like it when you threaten me."

"You will know, Severus, when I _threaten_ you." Severus looks down at his knees. "I am not your enemy," Lucius adds, in scarce more than a whisper, and Severus glances up when a House Elf comes over, setting some food in front of Lucius, the stuff he asked for, and a platter of all sorts in front of Severus…

 _So much_.

The platter is ridiculously big, a gigantic silver plate with all kinds of stuff on it – different eggs and meats and different fruits and kippers and hash browns and three kinds of toast and all these little jars of jams and that and—

"I can't eat all that," Severus mumbles.

"They don't expect you to," Lucius says, his tone abruptly a lot more gentle, and Severus squeezes his knees together, crossing his arms tightly across his chest and trying to make himself smaller in his chair, not knowing what to say, what to _do_. "You can leave what you don't like. Leftover food doesn't go to waste at Hogwarts: if it doesn't go to the House Elves, it will go to the pigs, the goats, or the chickens, and if not to them, to some of the other animals."

Severus frowns slightly, his lips twisting. He isn't sure that he wants to keep on the conversation, go back to his dad, not when it makes him feel like there's eels eating each other in his skin, and not when Lucius is so sharp, and— It's not that he doesn't know what his dad _is_ , that he's a drunk and that, because Mum says that. It's just the _way_ Lucius says it, like he isn't worth anything, like Severus mustn't be either…

"There's goats?" he asks, finally. "I've never seen a goat."

"They look as one might expect them to," Lucius says, taking a mouthful of scrambled eggs and chewing them in that aristocratic, delicate way Severus can't get used to. "Unremarkable."

"Never seen a chicken either. Not up close. Can you touch them?" Maybe it's a stupid question. He isn't sure what's stupid and what's not, when it comes to asking questions, not about these kinds of things, not when he's only ever seen a chicken when it's got all its legs and head and that cut off… He likes cats. He likes dogs. They seem to like him, mostly, because he doesn't run around and yell and shout like a lot of the other kids, just sits quiet and lets them come toward him. He prefers cats to people.

Dad hates cats.

"Of course," Lucius says. "They're very soft birds. Heavier than one would expect."

 _Heavier_. Severus considers this for a moment – he's never expected _anything_ about what a chicken would weigh, a real life chicken, because the cartoon image he has in his head of a bird with a little head and a big round body is entirely divorced from the cooked chicken they sometimes have on a Sunday, which he's never tried to lift as a unit.

"And they lay eggs?" Severus asks, aware that he maybe sounds more suspicious than he needs to when Lucius gives him a funny look.

"They do."

"But they can't fly?"

"They can jump rather high," Lucius says. "But no, a chicken cannot fly in the manner that say, a duck or a sparrow can."

Severus reaches for the plate, and he takes a sliver of apple that has been neatly sliced and laid in the formation of a flower on the platter, in amongst some pieces of pear. He chews it, trying to do what Lucius does and not move his jaw very much, but it's impossible, and he feels like an idiot.

"Cokeworth is a city?" Lucius asks, and Severus peers at the fruit on the platter.

"Yeah."

"Very industrialised, I expect."

"S'a factory town. So, yeah, it's industrial. The river's more brown than blue." Lucius wrinkles his nose slightly. "There aren't no ducks. Any ducks, I mean. There aren't any ducks. There's pigeons, though. Filthy, they are. And once I saw an owl fly by, a big one – not a post owl, a wild one."

"I like birds," Lucius says lightly, and Severus glances up at him, cautiously. Lucius isn't looking at him, and is instead focusing on his slice of toast. Somehow, he manages to eat without dropping any crumbs or getting anything on his mouth, but he still wipes his mouth with a handkerchief whenever he takes a break for a second – because when you're posh, he supposes, eating is so strenuous you just have to pause now and then so that the stress doesn't get to you.

"What kind?" Severus asks, after determining that this statement isn't some sort of veiled threat.

"I have an eagle owl named Hedone, have had her since I was your age. There are a great many game fowl on the grounds of my home, and in the surrounding woodland – pheasants, guinea fowl, partridges… There are wood pigeons, of course, and there is a natural spring in the woodland that attracts a few herons, not to mention that there are kingfishers along the river. I should like to breed peacocks and keep doves, once I leave Hogwarts."

"You can't keep 'em now?" Severus asks. "What, you live on what sounds like its own country, and you haven't got space for some pigeons in a shed?"

"You've seen doves, then," Lucius says, seeming amused.

"There's a lad at the working men's club has 'em. I an't seen them."

"Why not?"

"He's a nonce," Severus says. "Seamus Haverford, his name is. He never misses Mass."

"Ah, of course," Lucius murmurs. "The natural state of the Cokeworth man seeming toward predation."

Severus furrows his brow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Merely that your town seems to have a good deal more than the average in sexual predators."

"Din't know there was an average. What, you do a survey?"

"Very droll, Severus. How, pray, do you know about this particular gentleman's… proclivities?"

"He told Michael Jones that he'd give him a pound note and let him touch the pigeons if he'd come upstairs."

"What did Michael Jones say?" Lucius asks, his expression slightly sceptical.

"He said yes. It's a pound note, in't it?"

"Is that a lot of money?" Lucius asks, and Severus has a moment of confusion where he has to consider that as much as he lacks much of an idea of how much money's worth, in a wider sense, when it comes to purchases more than about three pounds, that Lucius has no frame of reference for what Muggle money is like at all.

"Um. I think it is, for a nine-year-old. I've never had more than tuppence at a time – a few Knuts." Lucius leans back slightly, and Severus sees an expression of disgust past across his face, as if it's really that terrible that Severus doesn't have that much money, that he's never had a big heavy coin pouch like a lot of the other kids in his year.

"Disgusting," Lucius mutters. "And does no one _do_ anything?"

"What do you mean?"

Lucius stares at him for a second, and then says, "About this Haverford." Severus takes a moment to consider this.

" _Do_ about him?" Severus says. "What d'you mean? No one really talks about him. I mean, you know, we know he's there and that. But he does the racing pigeons. Paul McKenna has some too, I think, but he hasn't got the same space in his garden, because Seamus Haverford inherited the house when his mum died and it's got a—"

"I _don't_ ," Lucius snaps in a raised voice, spreading one hand in a gesture to stop, and Severus leans back slightly. When he continues, he speaks more quietly, "I don't care about Haverford's social life. I mean, Severus, why does someone not intervene? A member of the Muggle constabulary, or someone in the community – someone from your church, perhaps?"

Severus sniggers. "What, one of the _priests?"_

Lucius stares at him, his expression utterly uncomprehending.

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," Severus says. "I wouldn't let one of them touch me anyway, or take pictures, or whatever."

"And what do you do with your free time, in Cokeworth?" Lucius asks, looking a little green around his gills, the sickly flush settling under his marble-pale skin. "Did you go to one of these Muggle schools, for young children?"

"Nope," Severus says. "Went 'til I was six, or maybe five. I'd only been there a few months, maybe a year. Then that primary school got burned down, and the other one was farther away, and I had to get up earlier to go and the uniform was more expensive, so I just didn't. But, you know, I had books, and I'd watch my mother make potions… Went to the library once I was seven and no one cared if I went on my own. Every day from two-thirty until it closed. 'Til this May gone."

"Why did you stop?" Lucius asks. "Don't tell me that got burned down as well." Lucius' tone is very wry, but—

Severus hesitates. "It was only a little damaged, but a lot of the non-fiction got burnt down, and I don't read novels and that."

Lucius gives Severus a sort of hopeless look, his head tilted slightly to one side. Severus picks up a piece of bacon with his fork, tearing into it with his teeth before he sees Lucius expression transform into disgust, and then he picks up his knife to cut it with that instead. He hates having to use a knife and fork, especially under close supervision.

"How, then," Lucius says, "although I shudder to ask, did you fill your free time?"

"Went for walks," Severus says. "Played in the park. Read at home, in my room."

"And by your room, you mean…?"

Severus' eyes narrow. "I mean my room."

"Your room is a bedroom, then? There is a window, a bed?"

"There isn't a window. It's warm, though,'cause it's right in the middle of the house, next to the chimney flue."

"But there is a bed?"

"Yeah. I have it on the floor against the wall, and then I have my chest of drawers, and my books on the chest of drawers."

"On the floor," Lucius repeats, very slowly, as if being proven right. "You mean to tell me, then, that you do _not_ have a bed. You have a mattress."

"What's the difference?"

"You have a mattress, in a cupboard, and you call this a bedroom."

"Oh, sorry I don't live in a _mansion_ like you, Lucius, with a golden path all the way up to my house and a fountain and associated woodland and whatever." Severus sets his knife and fork down with a clatter, crossing his arms tightly over his chest again, and he doesn't look at Lucius, not as the silence spans between them.

Lucius sighs. "That isn't what I meant, Severus."

They rest in stony silence.

 **ϟ** **~ THE INKBLOT ~** **ϟ**

Lucius sets his knife and fork aside when his plate is clear, and he looks down at Severus across the table. They've eaten in silence for the past few minutes, Severus picking at his food like a malnourished bird, and the platter scarcely looks as if it has been eaten from at all, but for the fact that there is an almost comedic gap where the slices of grapefruit had been at the beginning.

The boy doesn't like sweets.

He likes bitter foods: Lucius has watched him at dinner a few times, eating more green vegetables than most children his age would even dare to look at, favouring anything spiced with ginger or anything intended to be bitter. He seems to favour vegetables as a rule – he scarcely nibbles at meat, seeming willing to eat only enough that no one might label him a vegetarian.

"Have you classes today?" Lucius asks.

"No," Severus says. "It's Saturday."

"And what are you planning to do with your day?"

"Read," he says. "Study."

Lucius sighs.

"Severus," Lucius says. "It is a beautiful September day. You will not spend the entire day in the library with your nose in a book. You did that last Saturday."

"It's what I like to do," Severus retorts, his voice resolute.

"No," Lucius says. "It is merely _what_ you do." Leaning back in his seat, Lucius reaches into his pocket, drawing his watch out of his inner pocket and examining the complicated array of clock hands, numbers, and symbols. "It's nearly seven."

"Yeah," Severus says. "I mean. Yes. It is." His gaze is fixated on Lucius' watch, his expression focused, his lips parted in curiosity, and Lucius unclips the watch chain, leaning forward and offering the watch on his palm. Severus hesitates, glancing up to his face for permission, and then he takes it with surprisingly gentle hands. It is curious, that he should constantly twitch and shake about his shoulders and his body, but his hands remain ever steady, and skilled. He holds the watch like it's the most delicate thing in the world, careful not to smudge the glass as he draws his finger over the watch face.

"It is wizarding tradition," Lucius says, "to give a young witch or wizard a watch, when they reach their seventeenth birthday. Hasn't your mother one?"

"No," Severus says softly, playing a reverent finger over the shining silver of the watch casing. "What do all the signs mean?"

"These show the phases of the moon," Lucius says, drawing his thumb nail over a flickering element at the corner. "And this is the date, here in the corner. You know Roman numerals very well, don't you?"

"Always studied Latin," Severus says. "I knew I'd need it for Hogwarts."

Will they bother to get him his own watch, Lucius wonders? Will his parents, as poor as they are, think to purchase him a watch, even if it's the cheapest they can afford? Will they even care?

Severus holds out his hands, cupping the watch carefully, and Lucius draws it back, clicking it back onto its chain and slipping it into his pocket.

"How come it's silver?" Severus asks. "Isn't gold more expensive?"

"Of course," Lucius says. "But I don't wear gold."

"Why not?"

"It doesn't suit my complexion."

Severus gives Lucius a sceptical look, as if the idea of something not fitting his complexion is somehow foreign to him, or perhaps because he thinks if one is rich enough, they ought wear whatever is the most expensive, aesthetics be damned.

"Don't worry, Severus," Lucius says. "I'm sure your watch will be made of something black, when you come of age."

Severus laughs.

"I like black," he says.

"I've noticed that," Lucius murmurs, and he stands to his feet. Severus copies him, coming away from the table. "With me," Lucius says, and Severus doesn't argue with him, just follows him as they move out from the kitchens and into the corridor. There are a few more faces in the hall as they make their way up toward the Entrance Hall, and a few hungry students are gathered outside the doors to the Great Hall. As they come in, the bell tolls from the clock tower outside, and the doors sway slowly inward, letting people move in as food appears on the four great tables.

"Good morning, Mr Malfoy," says Madam Hooch. "And Mr Snape. Going for a walk, Mr Malfoy?"

"I'm going to take Severus to practice his flying," Lucius says, and he feels Severus' head snap up toward him, his mouth falling open. The boy all but bounces on his heels, desperately eager, and Lucius feels his lip twitch.

"Capital idea," Hooch declares brightly. "I'll walk with you!"

Utterly _mad_ , the woman is, but Lucius doesn't mind her bustle and her loud manner. Severus flinches, now and then, when Hooch's volume rises above a certain level, but he can see that despite his difficulty, he's doing his best to hang onto her every word as she speaks about wind resistance and flight speeds and certain obscure feints and rolls that Lucius is well aware would be useless outside of the Quidditch pitch.

"Malfoy was a seeker in his fourth year, you know! A damned good one, too!"

"Madam Hooch, I filled in for Percival Weatherby for one match in September after he took that blow to the head. To call me a seeker amounts to calling Professor Flitwick a Mediwitch because he helped Madam Pomfrey set a broken arm."

"Tosh. Absolute poppycock. You could give any of those s

eekers a run for their money, Malfoy! If you would only practice. Just an hour a day, I'm sure, would shave off the seconds those slow turns put on you, and—"

"Madam Hooch, I am not a sportsman," Lucius says patiently, doing his best not to laugh at the ridiculousness of his position. "Please, bully Severus, not me."

"Well, now you say it," Hooch says, turning back toward Severus, and the boy flinches when she claps her hand heavily down onto his shoulder, but she doesn't seem to notice. "You know, Snape, you're very quick on that broom of yours! You know the rules of Quidditch?"

"No, Madam Hooch," Severus says.

"Well! There's three balls, you see – you've got your quaffle, and that's passed back and forth between the chasers, who try to throw it through one of the hoops to score ten points; you've got your bludgers, two of them, and those'll do their best to knock you off your broom during play; and last, you've the Snitch! Now the Snitch is a real titchy ball, only this big, see, and the seeker's job is to catch it, and that'll net them one-hundred-and- _fifty_ points!"

"So whoever catches the Snitch wins, then," Severus says.

"Ah, not always, not always!" Hooch declares. "You see, if the chasers are doing very well, or if the game goes on awhile, they might have one-hundred-and-fifty points different between them anyway! You play any sports, Muggle sports, huh?"

"No, Madam Hooch."

"Darts?"

"No, Madam Hooch."

"You ever throw something across a room and hit somebody clean on the nose?"

Severus laughs. "Yes, Madam Hooch."

"We'll have a try with you, then!" Hooch says, clapping her hands together, and when they come to the broom cupboard, she opens it up, rifling through brooms as Lucius delicately opens a locked box in the corner, removing his own. "How are you finding the flying lessons, Snape? Not too hard?"

"No, Madam Hooch. I like being on a broom."

"You ever ride horses?"

"No, never."

"Very confident on a broom," Hooch says to Lucius as he hands his broom – a Nimbus 12 – to Severus.

Staring at the broom like he isn't sure what to do with it, Severus hesitates, examining the finely varnished wood and the golden lettering carved into the handle, as well as the neatly arranged bristles on the brush.

"Won't this go faster than the others?" he asks.

"Yes," Lucius says. "But the controls are finer, too – you'll likely find it to be a lot smoother flying than you might on one of those Cleansweeps or Comets, let alone on one of the Shooting Stars."

"What if I break it?"

Lucius sighs, suppressing a chuckle, and says, "Well, how are you intending to do that?"

"I'm not!" Severus says indignantly. "I'm not _intending_ to— Just, what if I do?"

"Well, if you do something drastic enough to damage the broom, I expect you'll be damaged as well, so a trip to the infirmary will likely be in order."

Severus seems baffled by this statement, perplexity showing in the blackness of his eyes, his mouth falling open before he remembers to close it again. Lucius smiles slightly.

"Are you going to oversee the Slytherin practice, Madam Hooch?" Lucius asks.

"Uh, well, in a minute, I think," Hooch says distractedly. "I should like to see Snape here on a broom like that."

Ever the predictable woman, is Rolanda Hooch. They walk a little ways from the Quidditch pitch, instead moving to one of the great, green fields between it and the route up toward the owlery, that leads down toward the boathouse on its downward curve, and he watches carefully as Severus goes through the motions of taking up his broom…

"Textbook," Hooch says approvingly.

"Obsessively so," Lucius murmurs.

It's curious, to watch the boy when he's been given very clear instructions, or when he's read from a book. He copies diagrams as closely as he can, and whilst Lucius would ordinarily frown upon a student religiously focusing on the written word over explanation from a tutor, he cannot deny that Severus seems to do _well_. He does not merely parrot that which he reads – he does his best to understand every concept before he allows himself to do something practical, but even then, it's so… _stiff_.

Seeing him on a broom is funny.

Settled on a broomstick, he lacks his usual twitchiness, his lacking grace and uncertainty – he seems relaxed, his posture square but loosely held, and he moves with a grace Lucius sees only the ghost of when he walks on his feet, and _yet_ … So particular are his movements. So angular is his turn, so straight is his dive. It is as if his every move is calculated with a compass and protractor.

"Go as fast as you can!" Lucius calls up to him as he moves through the figure eights he's used to in class.

"In't that dangerous?" he calls back, even his shout unnaturally quiet.

"I don't know, Severus," Lucius retorts. "Are you planning to jump?"

There's a moment's pause, and then Severus shifts on the broom. Lucius smiles to see him, watches the way he shifts his position on the broom, pulling himself in tight to the broom handle to keep himself streamlined, and then he's off like a _shot_ , streaming through the sky like a thrown ink bottle, his too-big robe streaming behind him as a train.

And when he stops, Merlin, it seems so _easy_ for him, and then he turns back toward them, flying down. Lucius expects him to do what any young man might in his position, try to land running or drop into a tumble, but instead he stops a perfect four feet above the ground, dismounting neatly.

"I have to go for the prefects' meeting," Lucius says. "I'll come back out to you when we're finished in forty-five minutes or so."

Immediately, Severus holds out the broom.

"Severus, keep it with you," Lucius says, his lip twitching. "Walk with Madam Hooch to watch the practice, and when I come back out, we can play."

"Play," Severus repeats, uncomprehending.

"Yes, play."

"But there's only your broom, how will we play?"

"Well, I'll keep to the stands, you can keep on the broom, and we'll play a game of catch." Severus stares down at the broom, and then he looks back up at Lucius, shaking his head slightly, his head tilting, and then the phantom of a smile lingers on his mouth. "Off you go, with Madam Hooch, then."

"Alright," he says, scarcely loud enough to hear. "Thanks."

He runs off before Hooch, toward the Quidditch pitch, and Hooch turns to glance at him.

"Taken an interest in the boy, have you?" she asks.

"No one else will," Lucius says.

"Always with the waifs and strays, aren't you, Malfoy? I remember that pigeon you had a few years back. Nursed that thing for months, didn't you?"

Lucius remembers. It had been a juvenile bird, four or five months old, much too small to be given Skele-Gro to heal its wing, so he had set the thing in place with a splint, and fed the animal a few times a day while it had healed. He'd only been thirteen – it had been nice, to have something so dependent on him, so soft and so _sweet_ …

"What ever happened to that bird?" Hooch asks.

"I set it free when it was healed," Lucius answers. "It went back into the forest. I saw it for a few summers – it would usually come back to me. And then it stopped coming." They both know what this means, of course. Wood pigeons are hardly known for their extensive lifespans. Hooch's expression changes, just slightly, apparently thinking of nothing to say, and she turns back to follow after Severus.

Lucius goes in for the prefects' meeting.


	7. Temper

"Up those stairs, Snape," Hooch says to him, and Severus glances from her to the wooden steps that lead up into one of the raised, wooden towers that make up the Quidditch stands. He hesitates for a second, but she nods to him as she mounts her broom, and he hurries up the wooden stairs, holding Lucius' broom carefully in one hand.

It's a beautiful thing, the broom. The varnished wood shines in the early light of the dawn, and every bristle is perfectly set on the brush, every single one… His mother had never had a broomstick, that Severus knows of – maybe she had at school, but she never did at home, not ever. Not that he remembers.

( _Dad would have broken it, anyway. All her cauldrons are dented, so why wouldn't he have broken a broomstick?)_

Why would Lucius let him borrow it?

It looks so expensive. It's so nice, it looks so expensive, looks like it costs more than _he_ does, and he holds it very carefully as he jogs up the stairs, before he moves into the stands and sits down.

He can see Hooch rising into the hair, leaning back on the saddle of her broom, and the Slytherins play, running through their drills… And it's _incredible_.

Severus has watched them playing football on the wet, muddy grounds outside the rundown athletics club. A few of them play rugby, too, now and then, but they mostly play football day after day, and he's seen the matches on the television. They're an occasion, and sometimes his friends'll come around, and they'll sit around the little kitchen table in the smoke from all their cigarettes, the smell of spilt beer thick on the air, and they'll all stare at the little screen in black and white with the volume turned all the way up and they'll yell and cheer and jump around—

He has to be quiet, when they watch the football, but he's allowed to stay in the room. He's allowed to watch with them, so long as he's quiet and so long as he fetches beer or cigarettes from the shop, so long as…

And he likes to watch them play. He likes sports, he thinks. He likes the activity of it, loves tracking the ball one way and the other way, loves wondering which team will win and trying to predict it, trying to predict which way the hammer will fall and who'll win and who'll score, but that's just on the _ground_. Quidditch is all that, and it's in the _air_.

He watches raptly as the brooms whistle past overhead, watches with his mouth slightly open and his eyes focused on the seven streaks of vibrant green that shoot through the air, silhouetted against the peach and blue of the new morning. The robes the Quidditch teams wear aren't like the ones that they wear on the day-to-day – the normal Hogwarts uniform is a black outer robe over a black under robe, with piping and linings and crests to be fastened on according to House colours, but the _Quidditch_ robes, Severus loves them. The Slytherin ones are a deep, gossamer green, with silver hemming the sleeves and the skirts, and they make such a picture in the sky.

Severus could watch them play for hours.

At half-past eight, the Gryffindor team come out to play, and Severus draws himself to the edge of the stands, peering down at them as they filter onto the pitch. He can't really make out what the Gryffindor captain is saying to Hooch as she flies down to meet them, but whatever it is she's saying, the Slytherins keep on playing, keep on practising. They slow down, though.

Before, they were trying different feints and complicated movements, co-ordinating as a team and flying in threes or twos or fives, in synchronicity. Now, they mostly practise throwing the red ball – the quaffle – through the hoops, or tossing it back and forth between them.

They fly down when Hooch blows her whistle, and he watches as the Gryffindor team takes over, and he stays settled in the stands, still watching. The Gryffindors don't seem to have the same strategies as the Slytherins – the Gryffindor team are bigger, more of them heavyset, and they seem to favour more strategies with their bludgers… They can throw the quaffle farther, though, and they make goals from almost twice as far away from the hoops as the Slytherins do.

"Oi!" snaps a voice at him, and Severus turns his head, staring at the Gryffindor that alights on the corner of the stand, glaring down at him. She wears brown leather gloves fastened to her wrists, her hair a cascade of black curls around her shoulders, and she looks down at Severus _fiercely_. She isn't like the other Gryffindors, the chasers and the beaters, who are heavyset and muscular. She's tall and lanky – _thin_. "What are you doing?"

"Watching," Severus says.

"Little spy, are you?" she snaps, advancing on him, and Severus' grip tightens on the broomstick as he flinches back from her, flattening himself back against the stands as she raises the broomstick to one side. It's bigger than Lucius' Nimbus, and looks like it wouldn't half leave a bruise. "What, coming in here and watching the practice so you can report back to the snake in charge? I don't think so. Out! Out!"

"No!" Severus snaps back, but he still jumps when she advances on him, scrambling off the stands and falling back on his arse on the floor. "No, I was told to wait here, I was told, I ain't—"

"Leave him alone, Winchester," Lucius says, and when Severus drags himself back a little more, he feels his shoulders touch against Lucius' legs. "We wouldn't want you to have another _nasty_ little accident on that broom of yours, would we?" Winchester falters, falling back on her heels, but she still glares down at Severus with hatred in her eyes. "Or, shall we say, _off_ that broom of yours?"

"Get him out of here," Winchester mutters, although it lacks the strength it had a moment before.

"The boy has never so much as seen a Quidditch match, Winchester," Lucius says in a saccharinely sweet voice, although none of this sweetness is present in the way he hooks one strong hand under Severus' arm and hauls him up from the ground. Nonetheless, when Severus stumbles on panic-shaky knees, Lucius keeps a grip on his robe, making sure he stays upright.

"Can we still play catch?" Severus asks, aware of the way his voice falters slightly.

"Of course," Lucius murmurs. "I didn't realize, however, that the Gryffindor team were practising now. Come, we'll go back to the field, lest we defend Ms Winchester's delicate sensibilities any further." Lucius waits for her to mount her broom again, before he adds in an undertone, just loud enough for Severus and Winchester to hear, " _Mudblood_."

Winchester curses under her breath as she takes to the sky again. Severus isn't sure how he feels. He feels… a little sick, actually. A little uncertain.

"Are you alright?" Lucius asks softly, and he touches Severus' chin, forcing him to look up and into Lucius' face. Severus feels the strength in Lucius' hand as he tilts Severus' face one way and then the other, as if checking him for damage.

"Mm."

When Lucius speaks it comes in a venomous whisper: "She threatened you?"

"No. Just… Came at me right quick. Like she was gonna hit me with the stupid broomstick." Lucius' arm curls around his shoulder, and for just a second, he draws Severus against him. It's odd. Severus' head touches against the lower part of Lucius' chest, and he can smell the clean fabric of Lucius' robe, smell the sickly sweetness of his mild cologne. He's warm, and broad, and it's—

It isn't unpleasant.

It occurs to Severus only when Lucius pulls away, leading the way down the stairs again, that that was a hug, that Lucius had hugged him. Lucius hugged him.

"Come," Lucius says, turning back to look at him. "We'll play on the green."

"It's too low down," Severus complains as they descend the stairs. "It's not the same as it would be up on the stands."

"That is probably for the best," Lucius replies airily, not turning to look back at him as they move further down toward the ground. "You won't have as far to fall in the event I set you off your balance."

"What was she so upset about?" Severus asks. "S'just _drills_. It's not like they're inventing the fucking wheel."

"Don't use that word, Severus."

"What, wheel?"

" _Severus_."

"I'm just saying," Severus mutters. "She doesn't need to have such a bee in her bonnet, that's all."

"They take Quidditch very seriously at Hogwarts," Lucius murmurs. "It's very competitive."

"Sports always is," Severus murmurs.

Once they get out onto the green, Severus mounts the broom again, and it surprises him, the arm that Lucius has on him – he can really launch the quaffle right high or very far away, and it's fun, to flatten himself against the broom and speed in the direction of the ball, to catch it. He fumbles it a few times – it's big and his hands feel too small even though his fingers are long, but he gets the hang of catching it in the crook of his arm as he flies _through_ it—

It's just once, that he misjudges and the quaffle catches him in the hip from behind when he moves too fast: he loses his balance, flipping upside down and hanging from the broomstick with his legs crooked around it, but he manages to catch the quaffle by the tips of his fingers.

He feels ridiculous, his robe skirt tangled up in his tightly-crossed legs knotted around the varnished wood of the broomstick, his body hanging down, his hair falling around his head, the quaffle held underneath him.

Lucius laughs, stepping closer, and he reaches up, letting Severus drop the quaffle neatly into his hands.

"Do you know how to get yourself upright again?" Lucius asks, his lips quirked in amusement: it looks strange, upside down, with Lucius a few feet beneath him.

Severus shakes his head.

"Are you frightened?" Lucius asks.

"No," Severus says. "Just feeling the blood rush to my head. It's a little odd."

"Keep tight hold of the broomstick, keep your ankles crossed, and swing your body forward. Use the weight in your torso and your head, and just grab for the broom handle— There you go. We're very lucky you're not much taller." Severus adjusts his grip on the broom handle, dragging his other hand up and clasping at it, and then he carefully wraps his arms around the handle too, throwing his weight to one side, but instead of just landing upright, he spins too far, and he has to clutch tight to the broom to keep from focusing overmuch on how dizzy he is. "Okay, okay, alright. Imagine a feather falling, Severus. Slowly, slowly it comes down, drifting on the air, moving down, down—"

"I in't a feather," Severus mutters, but he dares to open one eye. He's at the same level as Lucius' shoulder, and Lucius reaches out, taking a firm handful of the back of Severus' robe and gently pushing him upright, so that he's the right way up on the broom.

The dizziness and lightheadedness remind him of being on a train or a boat, and he feels nausea suddenly bubble up in his belly. It hadn't caught at him before – it hadn't felt the same, 'cause he was controlling it instead of just going along with it, but now he feels—

"Ah ah, down you come," Lucius murmurs, and Severus stumbles slightly as he clambers from the broom, immediately falling onto his backside in the sun-warmed grass. He breathes in through his mouth, letting the inhalations drag over the back of his tongue and into his throat, focusing on that, focusing…

"He looks a bit green," Hooch says from Lucius' shoulder, and Severus glances miserably up at her.

"He tried to swing himself upright, having been upside down. Took himself for a spin."

Hooch lets out a low "ooh" of sound that Severus thinks is sympathetic. "Takes a bit of finesse, that," she says mildly. "You'll get the hang of it, Snape. Care to try at the hoops, eh? The team's only using the one side." Severus feels himself gag, the bile thick and heavy in the back of his throat, and he claps his hand over his mouth. "Mmm, another day, perhaps. Take him for a sit-down, I would, Malfoy."

"I think so," Lucius murmurs. "Up you come, Severus."

Severus inhales once more, and then he slowly and shakily pulls himself up to his feet, trying to swallow down the desire to be sick, his stomach lurching. They walk very slowly across the grounds, and it's only when they sit down on a bench in the courtyard, next to the fountain, that he realizes Lucius still has the broom in his hand.

"I'm going to return this to the broomshed," he murmurs. "You wait here."

"Alright."

"And, Severus?"

"Mm?"

"If you vomit, do it on the floor, not in the fountain."

Severus feels himself laugh slightly.

"Alright," he mutters.

He is sitting on the bench, breathing evenly, when the four Gryffindor boys come out of the castle, laughing and shoving one another. He considers, briefly, wriggling off the bench and running, but he doesn't want to run. He doesn't think he could, without actually being sick. He wishes he knew jinxes, and spells, already – he wishes he knew something he could defend himself with.

They stop laughing, when they see him, but except for Pettigrew, who looks wide-eyed and anticipatory, _eager_ , they all keep smiling. They're nasty smiles.

"Hello, Severus!" Lupin says cheerfully, taking a step forward.

"Fuck off, Lupin," Severus says, and the four of them all let out low noises, nudging each other and laughing as they advance on him. There's nothing for Severus to lean further back against, nothing for him to hide himself behind, nothing.

Nothing.

"No big Head Boy to protect you now, is there, Snivellus?" Black all but crows, coming closer.

"I got the impression he was protecting you," Severus murmurs. "Not me."

Black's expression changes immediately, and he lunges for Severus, reaching to grab for his hair, but Severus brings his fist up and punches the other boy hard on the underside of the jaw and the neck – it bloody hurts, the pain bursting across his knuckles like he's cracked a whip over them, but it makes Black cry out in pain and drop down.

"You ugly little—" Potter hisses, moving forward, but when Severus grabs for his wand Potter is faster, throwing it across the stone floor with a clatter and grabbing Severus by his robe sleeve. Potter's faster than he is, and stronger besides, and Severus can't quite move his legs enough to kick out at him. "Give that hair a wash, shall we?"

Severus wrenches his leg free, and he brings it up _hard_ against Potter's crotch, dropping his weight to the side and dropping Potter into the fountain with a splash of water, but Potter drags him with him. Severus splutters as he's hauled underneath the water's surface, feeling the water sting at his eyes, and he punches blindly until he manages to get a blow against Potter's belly, winding him.

He's never been so angry.

Once again, four of them, all coming toward him at once, when he isn't running away, when all he did was _say_ stuff until Black went for him, and he can see Potter under the water, feel him struggle to pull Severus' hands from around his throat, but Severus has him pinned and in an awkward position. He's made blurry with the water, and Severus can see his glasses, feel the shift of his throat under his fingers as he grips tighter, resisting the pull at the back of his robes as Lupin tries to pull him off—

"SEVERUS SNAPE!"

He drags his hands back and Potter comes up gasping in desperate breaths, coughing and spluttering, red in the face. He massages his throat, glaring at Severus, and Severus turns to look at McGonagall.

Wide-eyed and glaring, her face ivory-pale with rage, McGonagall advances, and Severus cannot suppress the flinch before he scrambles out of the fountain, dragging his soaked hair back from his face. Behind him, he hears Potter cough, and he glances back to see Lupin helping him out of the fountain.

"What," McGonagall asks, her voice shaking with rage, "is going on here?"

Severus can barely feel his tongue in his mouth, can't convince his jaw to open, force his mouth to work.

Black says, "Snape here came out of nowhere and bloody _punched_ me. When James tried to shove him back, Snape went off his rocker, tackled James into the fountain and tried to drown him!"

"No," Severus says, his mouth as dry as a desert, cracking slightly. "Potter lunged at me and—"

"You could have _killed_ me," Potter snaps.

"What a shame that would have been," Severus retorts.

"Mr Snape!" McGonagall snaps, and Severus feels himself jump.

"He was shoving my head under the water – I shoved him in to scramble free, and he—"

"That's bull," Lupin says immediately, the lie flying off his tongue with ease. He must be used to telling lies, somehow. "It was all but unprovoked."

The burning embarrassment of the situation is threatening to rip its way through Severus' cheeks, and he grits his teeth together to keep himself from screaming. "No, it _wan't_ ," he snaps. "They're all just lying together because—"

"Mr Pettigrew?" McGonagall says, cutting Severus off before he can finish explaining.

Pettigrew, fat little slob that he is, looks up at McGonagall like he's terrified of her. "He's m-m-m-m-m-m—"

"You're gonna trust him over me?" Severus demands. "He can't even string two words together!"

"Mr Snape, come with me," McGonagall says crisply.

"What's the point? You're gonna give me a bloody detention anyway, so—"

"With me!" McGonagall barks, moving forward, and Severus feels like crawling out of his skin as he leans right back from her, nausea jumping into his gullet again as her fingers grip tightly about his arm. She hauls him into the castle, and he can't help the way he shakes as she drags him swiftly up to her office, and people _stare_ at him as she pulls him with her, dripping water on the floor behind him. He does his best not to look at them, and stares at the stone of the stairs and the floors instead.

He stands in the middle of her office, feeling himself shake, his teeth chattering together even though it's really not that cold, and the nausea is clawing its way up and into his throat. Every now and then, he feels it tip like a boat, and he thinks he might be sick, but he does his best to swallow it back.

"Mr Snape," McGonagall says quietly, moving forward, and Severus can't help the way he stumbles back from her as she advances on him again. He trips, but manages to keep himself from falling on the floor, his body still shaking. When McGonagall waves her wand, though, it isn't anything unpleasant – it just makes the water come away from his clothes, leaving him dry in his place.

He still shivers.

"Tell me what happened," McGonagall says. Severus risks a glance up instead of keeping his gaze downward. She is leaning back against her desk, her hands neatly folded in her lap. She looks smaller than she had a second before – marginally less imposing, and he knows it's stupid to be frightened of her, when she's just an old woman, when she wouldn't hit him, but—

He can't shake it. For one startling moment of absolute insanity, he wishes he could go home, and then he remembers that that was ten times worse.

"Why?" Severus asks. "Don't see the point. You heard what they said."

"Now I want to hear what you say."

"Bollocks."

"Mr Snape," McGonagall says, and her voice is as stiff and unyielding as a steel girder. "Tell me what happened."

"We said words. Black got angry and came at me, and I punched him in the jaw to keep him from grabbing at me. Then Potter grabbed me and tried to dunk my head in the water, so I shoved him in't fountain, and he dragged me after him and held me under 'til I could punch him. Then I held _him_ under."

"You seemed to be holding him down for rather a long time."

There's something in McGonagall's tone, slow and measured and quiet, that makes his skin crawl.

"What, you think I woulda killed him?" Severus asks, and he scoffs. He wouldn't have, he doesn't think. Even if McGonagall hadn't walked in, and even if Lupin hadn't managed to haul him off, he wouldn't have held him down 'til he _drowned_.

He doesn't think.

"Just wanted him to leave me alone. They all hate me. They did on the train, and they keep having a go." _Because I'm poor_ , he doesn't add. _And I know you don't like it either._

"You need to rein in that temper, Mr Snape," McGonagall says. She's gotten rid of that weird soft tone, thank God. "You can't afford to fly off the handle whenever someone says a sharp word to you."

"I don't start it," Severus mutters. "I never punch first. My da always said you don't _start_ fights, you finish 'em."

"In the bounds of this castle, Mr Snape, you will not fight at all. If one of them says a cruel word to you, I suggest you be the better man and _ignore_ it; in the event that one of them begins a physical altercation, you ought call for a member of staff."

Severus stares down at the floor of McGonagall's office. His hands are clenched tightly into fists, and as he holds his tongue his fingernails dig so deeply into his palms that he can feel the skin put tightly under pressure.

"You will serve a detention with Mr Filch tomorrow evening," McGonagall says. "And I am deducting twenty-five points from Slytherin house."

Severus's palms hurt. The pain is cutting and sharp and hot.

He doesn't respond.

"If I find you fighting with anybody again, Mr Snape, I will not be so lenient. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Professor McGonagall," Severus whispers.

"You may go," McGonagall says, after a long pause stretches between them. "Do _not_ go back outside, Mr Snape – I would recommend you spend the rest of your day catching up on your studies, and calm yourself down."

His palms are burning, but he doesn't feel sick anymore.

"Yes, Professor McGonagall," he whispers again, and when she opens the door, he all but sprints down to the Common Room. He hates the loud clatter of his boots on the floors, hates the way it echoes in the corridor and rings in his ears, hates how loud every noise he makes is, hates it—

"There you are," Lucius says when Severus comes into the Common Room. "What—"

"Good Lord," says Lindon Sartorius beside him. "Snape, show us your hands."

Severus looks down at his palms, which are ragged with the crescent marks from his fingers, blood staining them and dripping down his fingers. He feels sick.

"I feel sick," he says, and then he gags as the nausea bubbles up again.

"Bathroom," Lucius says. "Now, come on."

Severus doesn't bother to struggle or complain. Lucius holds him by the wrists as if he's something dirty – he holds Severus' wrists in the way he's seen his mother hold a dead mouse, with just his thumb and forefingers, very carefully.

"S'not fair," Severus mutters.

"What's he talking about?" Sartorius asks.

"I couldn't tell you," Lucius replies.

 **ϟ** **~ THE INKBLOT ~** **ϟ**

And this is how Lucius finds himself, ten minutes after Severus arrives back in the Common Room, having disappeared abruptly from the courtyard. Sartorius sits on the edge of the sofa, and Severus is sitting on the ground beside him, his head tilted back against the it. They'd moved from the bathroom to one of the lounges off the Common Room once it had become clean Severus wasn't about to vomit, although…

The boy still looks green around his gills.

There is a stool between Severus and Lucius, who is crouching on the spotlessly clean, stone floor, and a bowl of warm, soapy water rests between them.

He had managed not to be sick: this, Lucius supposes, is a boon he ought be thankful for.

Very carefully, Lucius brings the cloth over Severus' palm, cleaning the little wounds he'd left, and then he turns Severus' hand over, so that his palm is out of the water and Lucius can heal the nasty little wounds with a quiet murmur of a healing spell. This is what no one tells you, Lucius supposes, about being a Prefect, let alone Head Boy – you end up seeing all sorts of horrid situations, and you usually want to pick up a few healing spells for the sake of it.

He watches the nasty little wounds heal up, and then he looks at Severus' left hand instead, washing that one and performing the same healing.

"What happened?" Lindon asks quietly.

Severus says nothing. He's staring into space, eyes defocused.

"Severus," Lucius says.

"Mm?"

"What happened?" Lucius repeats, meeting his gaze.

"Got caught fighting Potter."

"After I told you—"

"I know what you bloody told me!" Severus snaps, and Lucius tightens his grip on Severus' hand, pressing his thumb tight against the hard heel. It isn't hard enough to really _hurt_ , but it's plain it's hard enough to make him pay attention. Severus' jaw clicks shut, and the temper goes out of him, fading like steam. "McGonagall gave me detention and took points off me. Twenty-five. Everyone's gonna hate me."

"Really, you've only lost the house two points, overall," Sartorius points out, his voice very mild as Lucius Vanishes the blood from the water.

"And no one has the energy to hate a first year," Lucius murmurs, taking up the nail brush. "This is what you use to clean your nails. You bring the nail brush at this angle, with a little soap on the bristles, and it brings the dirt out from under your nails, see?"

Severus is staring at his hands as if he's never seen them before, his expression distant as Lucius delicately cleans under his fingernails. It's _revolting_ , but he'd rather keep the boy still and quiet for a while before he interrogates him as to precisely what has happened.

"See? Nice and clean."

"His nails are too long," Sartorius murmurs. Lucius dislikes Sartorius' tendency toward obscenity, but in front of children, the other man is at least… _Caring_. Lucius can respect that, even if he doesn't respect Sartorius himself.

"They are, aren't they?" Lucius replies. "Get me the rest of the grooming kit this nail brush came out of, would you?" Sartorius moves swiftly across the room, and Lucius draws Severus' hands from the water, drying them carefully with a towel. His fingernails are long, for a child's, particularly a boy's – they're hardly talons, but it's no wonder he struggles to clean them if they're this long.

Sartorius hands him one of the small grooming kits that are kept to hand in the bathroom, along with spare toothbrushes and the like, and he takes up a pair of nail clippers from the little green bag, bringing it to the very edge of one of the nails.

There's something calming about doing this to Severus' hands. Perhaps it is the way that Severus relaxes, bit by bit, under the attention – he becomes less stiff and less visibly angry, his breathing evening out, and he allows Lucius to trim each of the nails before he reaches for a file.

"S'that?" It isn't proper English, but the boy is verbal, at least.

"This is a nail file," Lucius murmurs. "Feel that. Feel how rough it is?" Severus nods, touching his finger to the file. "That will smooth away the rough edges on your nails, where we've trimmed it, in case the angles are sharp. This side is the buff, and you use that to make your nails smooth all over."

"See, look at mine," Sartorius murmurs, putting out his hand and displaying his impeccably manicured nails. "See how shiny the nails are, how they all look the same?"

"Mm."

"Is he always like this?" Sartorius asks over Severus' head.

"He's rather quiet when he wants to be," Lucius says pointedly, and begins to file the edges of Severus' nails, smoothing them out. "How is that?"

"Feels weird."

"Doesn't hurt, does it?"

"No."

"Good."

They proceed in silence. All Lucius can hear is the sound of their breathing and the regular rhythm of the file and then the buff against Severus' nails. They still look unhealthy, when he's done – they have a yellow tang to them regardless, and the nails are heavy and thick, but they certainly look tidier than they had.

"Now," Lucius says, setting the nail brush, file, and clippers back into the grooming kit, passing them to Severus. "You are going to tell me precisely what happened. You will not leave out any detail."

Severus stares down at the grooming kit in his hands, his lips pursed.

"I wouldn't've killed him," Severus says.

Lucius feels his eyebrows raise, and he shares a glance with Sartorius over Severus' head: the boy, thank Merlin, is unaware, his gaze still fixated down at the floor. _I wouldn't have killed him_. Even for Severus, this is a curiously ominous statement to make after appearing in the Common Room having ripped open his own palms.

"I am sure you wouldn't have," Lucius says, tone measured. "Now, Severus. Explain."


	8. Bereavement

After Severus is done explaining, Lucius lets him go, and he curls up in the too-hard armchair in the very corner of the Common Room, a book in his lap. He makes notes as he reads, carefully scrawling annotations on parchments that he leaves within the pages of the book: he doesn't, it seems to Lucius, feel he can scrawl in his surprisingly neat, feminine hand on the pages themselves, but he works best when he can take in the knowledge and digest it properly.

"I've never seen a First Year so… _quiet_ ," Lindon murmurs, and Lucius glances at him, bringing his glass of water up to his lips and taking a sip from it. There's a chess board between them, but they don't bother to move the pieces – Lindon is a terrible player, and Lucius has no especial desire to play against him. "Doesn't he _play_?"

"He played today," Lucius murmurs, turning his back to Severus in his distant corner.

"At murder," Lindon says.

"At Quidditch," Lucius corrects. "He's very swift on a broom, and he seems a natural flyer. But he doesn't run about or shout, no. He barely seems to comprehend the fun of most of the card games, nor Gobstones."

"He seems to have his nose in a book whenever I look at him," Lindon muses, his head tilting slightly to the side as he glances back at him. "Always taking notes, always _studying_. Does he not relax?"

"He certainly _lets loose_ ," Lucius murmurs. "Such a _temper_."

"Mmm," Lindon hums. "Curious thing that he is. One has to wonder as to his home life."

"Does one?" Lucius responds dryly, and Lindon nods, giving a subtle gesture of one tilting hand.

"There are two ways a boy turns out like that," he says. "Natural inclination, or…" It is a plainly evocative way to end the sentence, trailing off as he does, but Lucius cannot deny the effectiveness of it, and, taking a glance at the clock over the mantel, he sighs and stands to his feet. "Another appointment, Prefect Malfoy?"

"Robespierre's funeral," Lucius says.

"Rather late for that, isn't it?"

"Greta Cinderford's cat," Lucius supplies, and Lindon releases a quiet, "Ah." Severus looks up from his book at Lucius, his lips downturned at their edges, looking for all the world like a beaten dog, and Lucius looks down at him expectantly, raising his eyebrows. "Well? Are you coming?"

"Professor McGonagall said I couln't go out again."

"I believe there should be a "d" somewhere in that word, Severus, you needn't swallow it into the back of your throat like that – there should be two syllables, for that matter," Lucius murmurs, and gestures for Severus to stand anyway, watching the boy unfold his awkward limbs like a spider to climb out of the armchair Reaching down, he adjusts the set of Severus' collar so that it sits straight upon his breast. "Could-n't. Could not."

"Could not," Severus repeats, not without a sort of venomous mockery in it.

"And she meant alone, I expect. An exception might be made, in any case, for a case of bereavement."

"Am I meant to pretend to be _bereaved_?" Severus asks, raising his eyebrows.

"If you like," Lucius says.

"Boo hoo," Severus says in a crisp monotone. Lindon hides his laugh in the palm of his hand, and Lucius sighs, feeling himself smile.

"Perhaps not," he amends, and puts his hand in the centre of Severus' back, pushing the boy ahead of him.

Apparently rising to the occasion, the sky has become somewhat greyer than it had been this morning, and Lucius sees rain clouds on the horizon, burgeoning in thick, grey masses over the Forbidden Forest's further reaches. Greta Cinderford is standing at the courtyard's entrance, her cheeks tear-streaked, holding a shoebox in her arms, and her dormitory mate, Emma Lane, is patting her shoulder sympathetically.

"Come on, Greta," Lucius says gently, and he leads his little trio of idiots down past Hagrid's hut, to the clearing at the edge of the Forbidden Forest that has become something of a pet cemetery in the past few years or so – he knows that walking some of the paths in the forest will lead one past a great many little stones and crosses in the ground, marking the graves of many a deceased owl, cat, or toad.

Filch is already waiting for them, and to the man's credit – credit to his insanity, at least – he is dressed all in black, and wears a cravat. Severus stares at him, then looks askance at Lucius, who merely mouths, " _Later_ ," to him.

"Mr Filch, thank you very much," Lucius says.

"Got a stone for 'im," Filch says, passing it over, and Lucius takes the flat piece of granite in hand, guiding Greta over to the hole waiting, and the piled earth beside it. The situation is entirely cartoonish – it _always_ is when one of the young ones has a dead pet – but Lucius retains a calm and quietly authoritative air as he gently takes the box from Greta's arms, using a spell to lower it neatly into the ground.

Greta dissolves into sobs, and Lucius opens his arms, letting her fall against his breast.

"'e was very old there, lass," Filch says. "An' he had arthritis – was kinder to him, that he died nice and peaceful in his sleep, like."

"Quite," Lucius murmurs, gently patting the back of Greta's hair, where she has tied her ponytail with a black ribbon. "And death is a part of life, my girl – it comes for us all."

"But I _loved_ him," Greta wails.

"And I'm sure he loved you, very much," Lucius replies, leaning back and looking at her face, gently patting her cheek. "Imagine how much he must have loved you, to spend his last moments beside you, hm? Sleeping peacefully on your pillow, knowing you'd look after him come morning? Most cats go away and hide, you know, when they're ready to die."

Greta nods, then sniffles, but Lucius manages to catch her wrist before her sleeve can be brushed over her nose, putting his handkerchief in her hand so that she can wipe at her eyes. He doesn't even want to think about the front of his robe, and he notices with no small amount of distaste that Emma Lane is crying too, with Filch rubbing a tear from one eye, as Severus stands stiff as a board between the both of them, looking very much like he would rather be in the ground with Robespierre.

"Now, do you perhaps want to say a few words to Robespierre, hm? Thank him for his loyal service?"

As Greta begins a tearful and incoherent eulogy, Emma stroking her back throughout, Filch begins to fill in the grave, and Severus stands in front of Lucius, holding the oval slab of granite as Lucius carves Robespierre's name into it.

 **ROBESPIERRE CINDERFORD**

 **d. 1972**

 **A loving and faithful friend. R.I.P.**

Lucius does not mention, as he passes the stone to Greta, that this is the same etching he has put on every pet's gravestone he has come into contact with in the past three years. It does not matter: Greta begins bawling anew, and takes several attempts to arrange the stone in a way that she feels is acceptable upon Robespierre's grave.

Lucius waves his wand, making flowers grow up on the upturned earth, and after allowing for twenty or so minutes of mourning on Greta's part, they make their way back up to the castle. Filch, thank Merlin, has to ask Hagrid about something, meaning that Lucius is not treated to his ordinarily uncomfortably impassioned speeches about how lovely cats are, at least.

"Mr _Snape_ ," says McGonagall, as they cross the threshold of the courtyard. "Did I or did I not _expressly_ say that you were not to leave the castle again today?"

"Professor—"

"Severus was attending the funeral of Greta's poor cat," Lucius breaks in, laying a gentle hand on the girl's shoulder. "He wished to offer some additional comfort to a grieving housemate – you would deny him this, Professor?"

Apparently overcome with the sudden realisation of Severus' charity, Greta throws her arms around him, which Severus visibly does not take to. Stiff and squarely held, he flinches when she wraps her arms about him, and Greta manfully ignores his visible discomfort, burying her damp features against his shoulder.

"As you can see," Lucius says.

"Quite," McGonagall says.

"Why don't you three go in and wash up for lunch?" Lucius suggests.

"Don't you mean the wake?" Severus says, so dryly that Greta mistakes his sarcasm for sincerity, and Lucius hides his laugh as he leads the two girls inside, Emma holding tightly to his other hand as Greta hangs heavily onto his other shoulder.

"Immensely popular, is young Mr Snape," McGonagall says. "He makes new friends every hour."

"And regrets every one of them, I'm sure," Lucius replies.

"First funeral of the year?"

"First of many."

"Is there much space left?"

Lucius exhales, considering the question. "I would say there are eighty to a hundred plots left. More, if we have mostly dead toads. Easily enough for the next two or three years, assuming deaths from natural causes."

"And how was Mr Filch?"

"Surprisingly stone-faced," Lucius says. "I have no doubt he will become more emotional as the months draw on. Did you only wish to discuss our little cemetery?"

"Mr Snape told you, I presume, what happened this morning?"

"He did," Lucius says. "He was feeling green after turning over himself on a broomstick, and I left him by the fountain less than five minutes as I returned it to the broom shed. When I returned, Severus was gone, and your four Gryffindors were tossing a quaffle about it and laughing about their victory. This is the second occasion the four of them have accosted him at once and found themselves gotten the better of, you know."

"Is that what you call attempting to drown a classmate in a fountain?"

"He wouldn't have _drowned_ the boy, Professor – he wanted to make it clear he was too dangerous to be worth baiting."

"This first occasion," McGonagall says, crossing her arms over his chest, "I don't suppose it has anything to do with Mr Lupin having Quick-Dry ink removed from his eyes, and Mr Potter having a broken nose?"

"I believe those injures were incurred whilst rough-housing," Lucius says smoothly. "According to Mr Potter."

"Mr Malfoy, this will not stand. Regardless of what they might say to him, he cannot respond with violence."

"I don't believe Mr Snape has yet responded to mere words with physicality, Professor. That is a flaw entirely on Mr Black's shoulders – of course, a different course of action is to be advised for _his_ temper, I'm sure. Coming from such an illustrious house, and with so elevated a bloodline."

McGonagall's mouth tightens, and Lucius watches her eyes grow colder.

"Gryffindor might be an honourable house, Professor," Lucius says quietly, "but four-on-one is not honourable in anyone's book."

"As you _say_ , Mr Malfoy," McGonagall says, visibly biting back some choicer retort, and Lucius moves past her, making his way into the Great Hall. Severus is seated beside Greta, his hand being held in hers, and he is listening half-heartedly, visibly not at all invested, as she speaks at length, no doubt about the glory days of Robespierre's youth.

"Lucius is calling me," Severus says, extricating himself hurriedly, but not before Greta can give him another hug, and Lucius arches his eyebrows at him as they walk to the other end of the room, sitting down at the far end of the table.

"You are a born grief counsellor, Severus," Lucius says,

"Fuck off," Severus mutters, and when Lucius claps him a blow upside the head in retort, he hisses, but makes no verbal complaint, instead laughing into his plate. "Were you and McGonagall talking about me?"

"Being talked about is not the same as being talked _to_ , Severus," Lucius replies, and when Severus gives him a baffled look, Lucius pushes a plate of sandwiches toward him, watching him eat. "Ah, Conrad."

"Good afternoon, Lucius," Conrad says, settling into the seat across from them, beginning to neatly fill his own plate. "And you must be young Snape. Lucius' personal project, aren't you?"

"Wh—"

"Mouth empty before you speak, Severus," Lucius says sharply, and Severus turns on him with black, murderous eyes, but chews his mouthful of bread and leftover lamb as quickly as he dares.

"How was the funeral?"

"Oh, as over-emotional as ever," Lucius murmurs.

"And the head?"

Lucius arches an eyebrow, and Conrad smiles at him.

"Word is you had your first sleepless night of the year," he murmurs. "Putting out fires the way through."

"Alas, that is the case," Lucius says darkly. "Such is the mantle of my position."

"I don't believe Hogwarts has ever had a prefect _quite_ as dutiful as you, Lucius," Conrad murmurs, his foot brushing against Lucius' ankle under the table before it pulls away – quite flagrant, especially for the Great Hall, but to Conrad's credit, he does not do it again. "Do you think you might take on the mantle when you're in fifth year, Snape?"

"I would rather die," Severus pronounces, dramatic to his core, and Conrad laughs.

"Don't let Lucius train that common sense out of you," he advises, and Lucius allows himself a small, quiet chuckle in response.


End file.
